The Temperature Scarf

The beginning of 2021--with the shadow of Covid still hanging over us--some neighborhood knitters put forward the idea of knitting a temperature blanket. This would give us a daily knitting goal when life's goals were focused primarily on staying well. It would also create a lasting memory of this year that would be a kind of knitted history. In fact, I dreaded the forced isolation of Covid and winter together, so signed on to knit a temperature project of some sort to motivate my daily knitting.

Much conversation was given over to this project--whether a blanket, scarf, shawl or whatever. Should it be only highs or both highs and lows? Should you indicate the days, weeks or months? How about precipitation? Barometric pressure? How many rows? colors? patterns? Everyone came up with a different alternative for noting the temperature of the 365 long days of 2021.

Knit a temperature scarf! That was my choice. The blanket-sized project seemed too big and would require too much yarn. The scarf, however, would be doable if very long...365 x 2 (down and back for a row) or 730 total rows. I planned to use leftover Britannia Shetland wool from ages ago and Felted Tweed by Rowan with some other yarns of similar weight and appropriate colors. Also, I chose just to indicate high temperatures and used a zig-zag pattern to indicate the ups and downs of temperatures in Minnesota. I inserted a black row between every week. I had no idea at the time how far up the summer would go or how far down the temps in February.

Off I started! I noted the day and checked the temperature and chose my colors. January was a decently moderate month for winter in Minnesota with temps in the 20s and 30s Fahrenheit.

February would show up with 10 days of the darker, more frigid side of Minnesota staying mostly in the single digits or below zero temperatures. From the 5th to the 15th, we ranged between -3 to 6 for the highs. I had no nice blues or purples so opted for gray and dark gray. These colors seemed appropriate for the mood of biting cold.

                        

Soon, winter gave over to spring, and that brought a change in hues from blue and gray to greens. That spring Easter was April 4th and it was a lovely, warm day of  77 degrees. Easter Monday was 83! You can see these are knit in bright red--a spring miracle, indeed!

                      

It was a long, hot summer. On June 1st, summer showed up with a vengeance when it hit 80 degrees. Days of 80s and 90s are knit in yellow, red and hot pink and account for much of the summer temperatures up until September 19th! There were a few days in the 70s, which are the greens.

             

In its turn, autumn arrived with a somewhat subdued color spectrum due to the very hot, dry summer.

                

After a year long endeavor, I ask myself why I did I do this? I have created an extremely long scarf that is not really useable in its current form.  Many yarn ends also remain to be woven in...a project for 2022, I guess! Maybe it could be converted to a body wrap, as a FB friend suggested, or a poncho or shawl? 

My takeaways from this knitting challenge were threefold: 1) I can follow through on a project for an entire year! 2) Every day is a link in the chain of experience and all are equally valuable. 3) The year 2021 had its ups and downs, hot and dry periods, and the Minnesota extremes, a year like most.