2017 Temperature Quilt
 

Yesterday I stumbled across a new to me idea on the internet that I am absolutely in Love with. It's called a temperature quilt. Let's see if I can explain this in an understandable way and see if anyone wants to join me.

2 critical aspects of the quilt:
1) The quilt is based on the daily temperature for the same city for every day of the year. You do not need to actually record the temperatures. There are multiple websites that track daily temperatures. You can reference those sites when you want to work on this quilt. One example of a site that tracks and records temperatures is www.accuweather.com.

2) You need to assign a different color for your different ranges of temperatures. For example, perhaps 90-100 degrees would be assigned the color red whereas 20-30 degrees would be assigned the color blue. The important factor is making sure that the temperature ranges you define make sense for the city you want to track. For example, I live in Western Washington and we rarely get hotter than 90 degrees and rarely get colder than 30 degrees so my temperature range will basically be between 30 degrees and 90 degrees. Do not feel obligated to use the "typical" warm/cool color ranges. Use whatever colors you love.

The Quilt Itself
Essentially the quilt is made of 365 units with one unit to represent the temperature for each day of the year. So in my above example, if on January 2nd the temperature was 30 degrees I would make a unit that is blue. If on July 1st the temperature was 93 degrees I would make a unit that is red.

The quilt can be made out of whatever unit you want. I think the easiest unit to use to represent each day would be a square of whatever size you prefer. Then just piece your units together based on the temperature recorded for each day.

Your creativity is the limit.
Want to use strips/rectangles, hexagons, tumblers, apple cores, etc. instead of squares? Go for it!!
Want to sew your units into rows? Go for it!!
Want to sew your units into columns? Go for it !!

You do not need to work on this quilt every day. My plan is to check in on temperatures for the week every Saturday or Sunday using www.accuweather.com and construct my quilt each weekend as the weeks go on. It shouldn't take more than 15-30 minutes each week to add the additional 5-7 units and attach them to previously constructed units.

Fabric selection
You could purchase fabric in your desired colors but I'm using my scraps. How much fabric of each color you need is completely dependent on the colors you select, the temperature ranges you define and the number of days that fall within each temperature range.

Feel free to share your plan for your units, layout, temperature ranges, colors, etc.

Here's my plan:
I live in Western WA and our temperatures generally range between 30 and 90 degrees in any given year. We do not get a huge range of temps so for my city using increments of 5 degrees makes the most sense for me in order to get a good color variation. If I didn't want much of a color variation I would define my ranges in 10 degree increments.

My range is:
[TABLE="class: cms_table_grid, width: 500, align: left"]
[TR]
[TD]Temperature Range[/TD]
[TD]Color[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]< 31[/TD]
[TD]Dark Purple[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]31-35[/TD]
[TD]Light Purple[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]36-40[/TD]
[TD]Dark Blue[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]41-45[/TD]
[TD]Light Blue[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]46-50[/TD]
[TD]Dark Teal[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]51-55[/TD]
[TD]Light Teal[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]56-60[/TD]
[TD]Dark Green[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]61-65[/TD]
[TD]Light Green[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]66-70[/TD]
[TD]Light Yellow[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]71-75[/TD]
[TD]Dark Yellow[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]76-80[/TD]
[TD]Light Orange[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]81-85[/TD]
[TD]Dark Orange[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]86-90[/TD]
[TD]Dark Pink[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD]> 90[/TD]
[TD]Red[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


My Units and Layout
My units are going to be HSTs with the top half representing the highest temp for the day and the lower half representing the lowest temp for the day. I "think" I am making 2" HSTs to finish at 1.5" squares.

I am going to sew my HSTs into columns for each month. So first column = January (31 HSTs), 2nd column = sashing, 3rd column = February (28 HSTs), 4th column = sashing, etc. Since January will have 31 HSTs and February will only have 28 I will add 3 solid colored squares to the bottom of February's HSTs. These will be the same color as the sashing. Undecided on the color although I know I do not want it to be any of the colors used in my temperature ranges. It will likely be white, black or gray.

Based on my calculations my quilt should end up around 28.75 x 38.75 or 31.25 x 38.75 depending on whether or not I add side borders to make it a bit wider. This is perfect for my desire to make this into a wall quilt as opposed to a bed quilt.

CUte idea. Think I may give it a try. Saved your idea for Jan.

Very interesting indeed. I'll think about it:)

Huummmm...... Good idea.

What a great idea. I may have to give this one a try.

I've heard some are doing it with HST for high and low.

This is such a great idea. I will use 2" finished HST's making it a little larger. I already have many 2.5 squares on hand. Now to decide on my color arrangement. We have highs over 100 and lows in the teens occasionally. I live about 65 miles due East from the Pacific Ocean.

Love this idea, I saved it too! Thanks so much for sharing!

I did a mockup of what this temperature quilt would have looked like for 2016 for my city using my plan outlined earlier in this thread to make sure I would like the outcome.Y es, I guessed on the temps for the remainder of the year :) Pardon the "rawness" of the picture - I did it very quickly in MS Paint. Pretend everything that is supposed to be the same size IS the same size, everything is aligned perfectly and the colors are "right". From this mockup I noticed that there was a lot of teal and not so much blue. I am going to switch those color definitions because I have more blue in my stash than teal.

[ATTACH=CONFIG]564298[/ATTACH]

What a cool idea. We live in two different places so it would be fun to see what I'd come up with!

Interesting idea to play with and plan. Besides, I'm a weather watcher.

Love this ideal.

Sounds like fun! Our temperatures range from minus 40's to the upper 90's....should be an interesting quilt. I think I will start looking for an appropriate border fabric!

I saw this idea once and was fascinated. Love your mock-up.

I am finishing the one I made for 2016. It's going to end up being a king size. It's been really fun, but with not much temperature variation during the summer in Cleveland this year the center doesn't have a lot of changes.
I used 5 inch squares representing the high of each day with 1&1/2 inch white sashing. Can't wait to finish it

Cute idea...Thinking about doing one.

Interesting!
I'm thinking this might be fun to do.

Definitely sounds interesting.

Thanks for the mock-up Imanna, it is always great to put a visual to it.

This might be a good way to use up some scraps. I need to see what my fabric stash looks like and see if I could do this quilt. I am afraid I would get through one month and then stop, though.

For some reason the whole ( year long) thing gives me a headache, but, I do love the idea of this one. Would be great for using some scraps. I just have to remind myself that ( one day at a time ) is all it takes. Numbers often bring me to a frozen state. :(

I love the idea -- what a great look. Think I will go with the 2" finished size, but I like the HST for the high and low temps. Great idea.

I decided a Kona bright jelly roll would work well for my quilt. I want to make hst's with the low and high. BUT, since Tuesday's temperature is predicted to be minus 35 with a wind chill factor making it minus 61, I have decided that just the highs and lows won't accurately record our weather variations. So I came up with a plan to put a stripe in the middle of the hst depicting the low with the bottom corner being the wind chill temperature whenever the wind chill factor is more than 10 degrees.
Depending on how this looks and sews, everything might morph into straight half and half squares....lol....we shall see....

Imanna ......this sounds like a fun idea. Thanks for the visual.....This would be great for our Birthday Swap Candies.

I thought the same thing.....what about making large block quilt with an average high/low block for each month....piecing each block differently....anyway that's the start of my thoughts....I'm not quite there yet. Anyone want to add additional ideas to this...a way to not be tied to a block for every day? I know the 365 block idea is big right now. I do love what you have mocked up Imanna.

Well this is pretty interesting....thanks for sharing

I'm so glad people are interested in doing this with me. My hubby looked at me like I had 10 heads when I told him all about it. I was all set to make my first HST tomorrow but realized I have to wait until Monday to really know what the high and low temp was. We've got some very cold temps predicted for the next week or so that means more purple for my quilt. I don't like cold but I do like purple!

I'm going to try to do this with my "candies" from the 2-1/2" block swaps. Sounds like fun! :) I'm trying to come up with a way to show the high temp, low temp, and what the weather was like (rain, sun, snow (rare in GA), etc.). Hmmm ...

New member and want to play with the temperature quilt. Will use solids and my snow dyed fabric only. Will paper piece with 3 inch hexagons and relations; working from the center out going counter clockwise. White for below 20, then maximum contrast at each ten degree mark, ending with magenta for over 100.

mnt grandma, I love your concept and am eagerly waiting to see how it progresses!!

Sounds like fun! I think I'll do it with hst since I've been wanting to improve my piecing skills.

Rob

Super excited to see Mnt Grandma's version. I cannot picture it but it sounds dang cool.

I am crazy enough that I also decided to do a daily precipitation quilt along with my daily temperature quilt. The precipitation quilt will be all in shades of solid blue and using white on the days we do not get any precipitation. It will be a different layout than my temperature quilt and I am hoping to get fancy shmancy with my quilting and quilt some rain drops....maybe even an umbrella. EEK!

You must live somewhere wet!

Love it!! Raindrops and an umbrella sounds so cute!! Maybe quilt a sun and clouds on the temperature one?

I think this is what I'm going to do. :)

Picture this as a calendar with 12 months. The red indicates the day's high temp. The blue is the low temp. The yellow stripe will be "weather" fabric. I've ordered some fabric with raindrops, some with clouds, some with sunshines, and some with snowflakes.

(Yes, my calendar is all "Januaries" (LOL!), but pretend they're the actual months. Any blank spaces will be black fabric.)

I plan to use 3-1/2" squares (3" finished), so by the time I add sashing and borders, it should come out to be about queen-sized. (Hope my math is correct. I need a nap!)

[ATTACH=CONFIG]564783[/ATTACH]

Forgot to mention: I plan to use the following colors. :)

0-10 degrees - white
11-20 - gray
21-30 - purple
31-40 - blue
41-50 - aqua
51-60 - green
61-70 - yellow
71-80 - orange
81-90 - pink
91-100+ - red

I wish there was a way to make Dresden Plates with each blade representing one day of the month. Well, I'm sure it could be done, but my math is lousy. You'd have to have a 28-blade pattern for February, and 30- and 31-blade patterns for the other months. The name of the month and the year could be embroidered on the plate's center piece. That would make an interesting temperature quilt, I think! :)

So I have just started playing with EPP and have become addicted. So I want to use paper piecing for this project. I am not sure if I should try to do a HST for highs and lows and make a square for each day. I also thought about half hexagons. I can't figure out the design in my head. I am new to EPP and want to work on becoming better this year, so this is a great way to work on it. I will head to the quilt shop today to get some inspiration on shapes and figure out some semblance of a plan.

My temps for yesterday were high of 50, low of 37.