Already Thinking About 2024’s Temperature Blanket
As my 2023 Temperature Blanket is going to be huge, I have already begun researching what to do come 2024.
If you haven’t heard about my amazingly gargantuan 2023 Temperature Blanket, please click here to go to my blog to hear all the gory details.
Now, I didn’t want to make small daily, or weekly squares because I despise seaming the squares together afterward. I want them to look a certain way when finished and I haven’t managed to find a way that works the best for me. Yet.
When I am knitting, writing, or just scrolling through emails, I like to throw something up on YouTube that will keep my interest a little bit, but not overly so. If I am writing, that’s more important. Knitting and crocheting, it’s usually not as important.
Last night, I put on a Hooked By Robin video and let it play.
The video I watched first, that darn near immediately caught my attention, was Crochet Vintage Half Hexie Tutorial/Made By Anita. I only put it on because I know I like her voice and her attitude and I was working my way through my email and wasn’t worried about what was on in front of me so long as I had background noise going.
Before the end of the video, I was watching the video and ignoring the email because it was amazing to watch her work a half hexie and join as she went.
And that is when my frazzled brain went off on its own tangent, sorting through the bins of yarn in the basement, pondering hooks and number of hexies and … yep.
I have never crocheted a hexie in my life. All of a sudden, I am smitten.
Then that video ended and another Made By Robin video came on.
This one, The Crochet C2C Granny Square JAYG Method, had me before it went too far. My mother works up the most amazing C2C blankets.
BTW, if you are interested in owning one of my mother’s handmade blankets in about queen size, message me, or email me, and we will see if we have anything here that will appeal to you.
Anyway, my mother and her C2C blankets. Those are the “Granny blankets” that every child and animal in this house prefers over anything I make—and it isn’t just me. These blankets are beautifully made, gorgeously warm, and beyond comforting to wrap up in.
I have wanted to try C2C work. I have made a few washcloths as test projects. I can do it. I haven’t sat myself down and said, all right, I am making a whole blanket.
Then came that video and my brain exploded. C2C blocks—which can be monthly squares for a temperature blanket. Or we could make smaller circles, as weekly squares. Plus, they are join as you go.
*GASP*
I have been pondering doing the very simple single crochet or garter stitch temperature blanket for next year.
Let us not even begin discussing color palettes as I already have a section in the back of my planner where I have two palettes ready to be used.
I have yet to be extremely enthusiastic about the whole single crochet or plain garter stitch blanket ideas. Now, I know, once all the days have been added on, the blanket will be beautiful. But still, the thought of however many stitches in single crochet or in garter stitch, for an entire year, it makes me want to cry already and I haven’t committed to doing it yet.
Now, here’s Hooked By Robin. Thanks to her, I have contemplated doing the V stitch instead of single crochet.
But here we are in February of 2023 and I am thinking, ok, right, let’s plan for 2024.
What the heck is wrong with me?
I look at it this way. I can test out these patterns, and make a few throws perhaps. I would say I would make kitty blankets for my daughter’s cats, but I know, it won’t be nearly as good as a Granny blanket so it had better be big enough for my daughter and son-in-law to snuggle underneath. If I make a blanket for my middle child, it has to be taller than he is…and he is well over six feet, so I make the blankets at least seven feet long. My youngest son won’t care how big it is as long as I make it for him…and then it will simply go into his blanket rotation, until he figures out what I have to make him next, according to him.
So, I am thinking of sticking with the same yarn I am using this year, which is Joann Fabrics Big Twist Value worsted. I prefer to work with worsted-weight yarn because my eyes have decided that they have worked for me long enough and they feel they deserve to go on strike or whatever.
I have been waiting to go blind ever since I was twelve, so it is not an unexpected thing. I am currently awaiting the final stages of macular degeneration so that I can have surgery, on one or on both eyes, to see if that helps stall the process. But, never mind that.
I don’t have too much issue with this yarn when I crochet or knit with it. I typically crochet with it now, using it for blankets and hats, and maybe a scarf here and there. Things that need to be sturdy and take a lot of wear and tear and washing.
I have also looked at using a palette of Caron Simply Soft. I love the sheen more than anything. That yarn is a lighter worsted, almost DK-weight yarn for me, but the jewel-like tones get me. Plus, I understand how splitty it can be, which baffles the heck out of me in the Big Twist.
So, I currently have in stock about eleven or twelve different colors of the Big Twist value worsted yarn. Some of it is definitely thicker than others. It varies from skein to skein. Some colors seem more prone to the thinner weight than others. In my finished blanket, it won’t matter, so I just let it go.
Another issue that I have is that the thinner yarns are usually more splitty and harder to work with. Maybe it is because I am using a smaller hook than I normally would. I am using a G hook. I would typically grab an I hook. An I hook is what my mother uses to crochet her blankets. That’s where that decision comes from. She is the expert in my world and I defer to her. Except that this time I am making a blanket in a year and didn’t want such a massive blanket. That worked out well, didn’t it, lol.
I am not even thinking should I make a Tunisian crochet blanket? No. No, I should not. I need a lot more practice before I do anything nearly that large with Tunisian crochet.
So, I am thinking of playing with the hexie blanket and making a throw for myself, probably over the summer.
I am also thinking of making very small, maybe three rounds each, little temperature blanket squares, in granny square style—yes, in a pattern I have not in any way discussed this entire time because why not? This would be my 2024 temperature blanket project.
How did I get here?
Hooked By Robin, bless her, hooked me (no pun intended): 3 EASY Ways to Crochet Squares Together! NO SEWING.
Years ago, my mother gave me a bunch—and I mean a BUNCH—of granny squares she had worked up. I took them and whip-stitched them all together so the kids and I could use the blanket, so we could snuggle under the protective love of Granny all together under the blanket. Ever since I whip-stitched that thing together, I have wanted to dismantle it and re-seam it properly. I have never felt capable of doing that. I have never had the confidence to do that.
I am putting this on my to-do list, sometime after March. I am going to take that blanket and rip out the whip stitching, Then I am going to seam it properly, per the instructions in the above video.
This is how I got around to three round granny squares for my temperature blanket come 2024.
Although after I make up the small hexie blanket, I do want to try working that C2C squares blanket that is join as you go. I haven’t really thought that one through yet. I have enough yarn cakes in my stash to make it and I have been hemming and hawing around those skeins since well before the pandemic. This seems like a good time to take them all out and make a blanket, doesn’t it?
If you are interested, I found a ton of Lion Brand Mandala and Bernat Pop! Yarns on clearance at Walmart years ago. Each skein was a dollar. I must have spent over thirty dollars. I grabbed everything I could while leaving some for someone else, just in case, because that is what I do usually. So, I have a stash of this stuff.
I have been making one big granny square throws using the Mandala yarn held double with a skein of Caron One Pound yarn in a plain color. The one on my chair right now is I think the colorway Gnome in Mandala and a navy blue in Caron One Pound.
Even then, I still have more. That wasn’t the only time I found Bernat Pop! On sale, although that was the best deal I ever found.
I do have a bit of Caron Simply Soft in my stash. I will have to play and practice a bit before I drive myself crazy saying this, this is THE pattern for 2024. Maybe the C2C squares will capture my heart and that is all I will want to do for next year’s temperature blanket.
Maybe it will be those vintage hexies, all join as you go. Maybe those will become my thing, that thing that I fall back on and do when I have nothing else planned to work on.
Until next week…thanks for reading and for supporting me on this journey.