2021 Temperature Quilt WIP

How I'm making my 2021 Temperature Quilt!

And here we are again old friend! Back to the blog we go :)

Here we are to talk about my year long WIP.

One of my very favorite places to seek inspiration is Instagram! That is were way back in 2016 I believe, I learned of this thing called a temperature quilt. I was immediately hooked on the idea and knew I just had to make one...but how?!?

It honestly took me until 2020 to really get the facts and a plan in place to do one for myself. 

Sure, I have followed the temperature quilt hashtag on Instagram and saw oh so many ways I thought would be fun and exciting! But, none really said, THIS ONE to me until I laid my eyeballs onto the "squircle" block! That was the jumping off point for me and here is how I am doing this!

First, I knew I wanted my quilt to be from January 1st until December 31st of the same year. I've seen many quilts that are different days and I do like that idea, start where and when you are and just go! is a great plan. But being that I needed to figure stuff out I gave myself time to do that. And January 1st just felt right to me :).

Next, I needed to figure out what temps I was going to use. I knew that I would do this in Fahrenheit but what would my range be??? This took me a couple of months to figure out and to be honest I actually feel like I might not have this just right.

I searched the historic highs and lows of my current city (Ypsilanti Michigan) and in that search I learned that I would need something that went very cold to very hot.

I did a google search and came upon a free printable that I used for the temps AND look at that, it had color suggestions that I think work for me too! She based her quilt on the rainbow with purple being very cold and red being really hot. Perfect idea! Go HERE to see that post. *she also has fabric bundles too! but I didn't buy those and now am a bit regretting that as I don't have colors for 61-71 as yet!!

Next, I needed to pick sizes for my blocks and the squircles. I did some math and feel like a 4 inch block for the daily high square is the right size for me so that's what I am doing there. For the squircle I needed to pick a size that would fit nice in the middle of that 3.5 inch square (seam allowances of 1/4 inch reduce the size of each 4 inch sewn block).

I did a google search and found a free printable of a squircle and used my printer/scanner to help me resize it to be about 2.5 inches.

I took this print out to my table and got out my Reynolds Freezer Paper roll (purchased at Walmart forever ago) and traced the squircle using a pencil onto the paper (non wax) side.

I know in the videos I have watched people use one or just a couple layers here but that does not work well for me. The edges tend to turn up on me and I don't get a nice even squircles. So I like to use 4 layers of freezer paper.

To do this I take that traced page and stack it on top of three other blank cuts of freezer paper and iron them (wax sides down) to a scrap piece of paper. Once they are all "melted" in place I remove the template (once it cools off) and cut around the traced lines. And now my template is ready to use.

Now, I have a good idea of what I am doing!

I know I want to start January 1st and I know my temps and what colors to use. I have purchased most of the colors I will need and guessed that I would only need 1/4 yards for the coldest and hottest days and got 1/2 yard for the moderate "middle" temps. 

This is so far working ok BUT I think I will be running low on the green fabrics for those 40-21 degree days. 

I had planned for a cold winter and it wasn't so cold in January. But, I used Kona solids and can easily go buy more when I do run out. So, no worries there!

So each day starting on January 1st I go to the weather app on my iPhone and look at the ever so handy daily high and low for my city.

I start with the high and go to my chart and find what color represents that temp and cut out a 4 inch square. Then I look to the low and cut a 3.5 inch square for that color.

I use a pencil and jot down the month and day on the squares (on the back where no one will see it but me, just to be sure things stay organized. Ya just never know!

So, how do I stitch down those squircles?! 

I did a YouTube search and found a cool video that has a technique called freezer paper needle turn applique. Go HERE to see that video.

I now have the daily high and low pieces ready to stitch on. To do this I watched THIS video for tips on how to get those close to invisible stitches to stitch the applique block down.

I am all "done" with January...Well, I have all the blocks and squircles cut and ready but I haven't completed all but that first row. My plan for my "free time" this week is to get the second row of squircles sewn on and then sew row two to row 1. Let's see how well I keep up with that goal 😀.

Also, I knew I wanted to mark the months some how. So, off to Instagram I went and looked high and low on the hashtag temperature quilt posts and found a quilt that had printed "tags" for each month. I love this idea and decided to use that as my inspiration. In the picture below you will see  the two gray squares with January and February on them. I did this will my ink jet printer and freezer paper again.

To do this I just ripped off a piece of freezer paper from the roll and used my matt and cutter to make a printer sized (8.5x11) piece of paper. Then used this and ironed it (wax side to the fabric) and trimmed the fabric to the size of the paper.

With this I can then just put it in my ink jet printer paper tray and print right onto the fabric.

These blocks (rectangles) are sized/cut to 4x 7.5 inches.

I am also far enough into the year that I was able to do a lay out of my rows. I wasn't so sure how the math would work out so I held off sewing everything up right at first. I want to be sure that my quilt will be longer than it is wider, that's just how I roll 😉.

BUT! I also know my terrible habit of procrastination so I also knew that I can not leave this to sew up until later this year or even next year. I must keep going on this right now as the days happen. Basically, I need to get to December 31st with a mostly completed quilt top!

What I have settled on is each row will have one month and 18 days of blocks. I am planning for the quilt to go horizontal and not vertical as it's shown in the picture.

But, like all things we do on the fly this may change...as I say, it's all a work in progress!