Sky blanket 2015

A year ago, I wrote about my plans to crochet a sky blanket, inspired by Laura, making a square per day to represent the colour of the sky at noon.  I chose white for cloudy, light grey for a bit of rain, dark grey for a lot of rain, light blue for a clear sky and yellow for when it was sunny, as I felt a completely blue, grey and white blanket would be a bit cold for my liking.

Now, in no way shape or form am I declaring this to be remotely scientific.  I'm not entirely sure what the difference always was between a blue day and a yellow day (it just felt blue or yellow) and I didn't always manage to look at the sky at noon - either I forgot, or I wasn't anywhere near a window.  So then I had to think about the weather for the day, and was it sort of like that before I had my lunch.  Ish.  Some days it was beautifully sunny, then poured between 11.58 and 12.02, other days it was horribly grey but gorgeous at 12.00, so I couldn't guarantee that I'd get the right colour for the day.  But it's a blanket, not an accurate meteorological record, so I'm not going to worry about it too much.

I loved this project from the beginning.  Some days I'd crochet the square for that day, other days I'd forget/couldn't be bothered so I'd write the colour down (so many pieces of paper floating about) and then crochet a few of them when I had the chance.  I attempted to sew my ends in as I went, and sometimes I did and sometimes I didn't.

As the 1st quarter shows, it was growing at a good pace and there was a pleasing mix of colours already.  My ends also appeared to be neatly sewn in!  I was adding the squares diagonally, starting in the top left hand corner and working outwards.  There's a stitch marker showing which corner is 1st January.

The 2nd quarter included April, which was very sunny: there is a lovely patch of yellow in the bottom right hand corner.  I reached the half way stage and could see just how big it was going to be.  I couldn't get it all into a photo in the bedroom (apologies for the state of the carpet, the joys of living in a rented property!) so had to think about taking it elsewhere!

So for the 3rd quarter I moved outside to the washing line.  My sewing in of ends was definitely lax at this point.  It was  getting quite heavy to work on and a bit of an effort to crochet a square a day. From this point on I tended to do quite a few in one go, so I didn't have to keep getting it in and out of its bag.

Finally, I'd crocheted all the squares, up to 26th December.  The final five days of the year make up the five rounds of border (as 365 doesn't divide neatly!).  I sewed in all my ends, and then I was done.

At this point, it was raining pretty much non-stop so it took quite a while before it stopped raining long enough whilst I was at home to go and take photos on the washing line.  

Lots and lots of yellow:

The border:

It was only on the (wet!) ground for as long as it took me to take a few photos and then I quickly slung it over my shoulders!

Now for some stats: well, there would be stats if I had any.

I don't know how many squares of each colour there are, I was going to keep a list, then I forgot and then there were just too many to count.  Yellow does seem to be rather dominant though.

I have no idea how many balls of each of the five colours I used - I started off buying three or so of each and then bought more as and when I needed them.  I think there was only one point during the year when I had to pause as I'd run out of the next colour.

It drapes nicely over our kingsize bed.

I really, really, really, enjoyed making this.  As I've said before, if I needed even more blankets I'd make one per year, but I feel that's a tad excessive and may spoil how much I like this one.  It's been a lovely souvenir from 2015 and now all I need is a button with the year on it, so I can sew this on to 1st January - whilst the stitch marker is serving a purpose, it's not terribly pretty!

So for anyone thinking about starting a sky blanket, I say go for it - it doesn't have to be an arduous project, make a square as and when you can.  Just remember to make a note somewhere of the colour!

This is part of my 101 in 1001 - you can read the full list here.