New Years Resolution - Finish That Afghan!

Many people make New Year's resolutions.  They will become Better People.  They will stress less, laugh more.  They will be kinder.  They will lose weight.  They will drop bad habits.  Maybe they will even participate in Dry January.

Me?  I usually don't make New Year's resolutions, but this year of 2024 will be an exception.

I WILL FINISH MY 2023 TEMPERATURE BLANKET BEFORE THE END OF 2024.

Maybe.

A definite maybe.

I first blogged about crocheting a temperature blanket on  November 17, 2022.  On January 25, 2023, I told my readers I was underway.  I did start.  I even purchased almost all of the yarn over the last year.

So what is a temperature blanket?  You can knit, crochet or quilt it.  You pick colors representing temperature ranges that make sense for your climate (or the climate of someone you want to gift the blanket to.  Some people make one for a new child or grandchild/great grand in their family to record their first year of life.  Or, you can just make one for no reason at all.

Below are the colors I decided to use for my blanket.  What I did was record the high and low temperatures for every day in 2023 and my plan was to crochet one row for each day's high with its assigned color. 

0 F (-17.8 C) and lower:  Pale Plum.  It would be most unusual where I live to have a high less than zero F, and, in fact, 2023 did not offer such a high.  But we did have a low of -5F (-20.5 C) one night so I decided to include a strip of low temperature color and high temperature color for that day.

In addition:

1-21F   Dark orchid

21-32F  Royal blue

33-43F  Turquoise

44-53F  Spring Green

54-66F  Kelly Green (think of St. Patrick's Day)

67-77F  Bright Yellow

78-88F Carrot orange

89-99F  Pretty in Pink

100F (38C) and above - Fruity Stripe (shades of pink - a variegated yarn) I didn't have to use it. 

So, as of December 31, I had gotten up to (drum roll) - April 6.

This is what 2023 (as of April 6) looked like on December 31.

At this rate it will take some two years to complete the afghan. A confession here, I did much of the work on the afghan during road trips.  There were several from my home in the Southern Tier of New York last year:  in February, to Greenville, South Carolina, in June to New York City and Long Island for a wedding, in July, to Plymouth, Massachusetts, and, in September, to Bennington, Vermont.

Am I going to have to schedule several more road trips to work on this afghan?

Meanwhile, my spouse wants me to continue posting high and low temperatures on our calendar in 2024.  It was educational doing it in 2023.

After all, 2023 was a most interesting weather year. The weather in winter certainly wasn't anything like the late 1980's when I first moved to this area. I can remember snow in December piled high with the city of Binghamton wondering where their snow removal people could put it.

2023 was also a year of many memories.  Wouldn't it be nice to have a completed 2023 afghan to celebrate on December 31, 2024?

Wish me luck keeping my New Year's resolution.