Temperature quilt: begun!

The temperature quilt is underway!  The prep was different and fun.  First of all, I had to gather my fabrics.  Someone doing a temperature quilt in Manchester advised me to use a different fabric for each degree C, and I'm glad she did, because you definitely need it.  I laid them out in a row, and then put every other one in the row above, to check how they fared when split up a bit.

I scrapped the second-bottom grey, it didn't quite fit, and the bottom grey can be divided into light and dark if need be.  That's for -9, which has only turned up once, so unless we have an unusually cold winter at the end of the year, it won't be a problem.  There was that year, 2010 I think, when the temperatures went down to -16 at night, but that was incredibly unusual, and we still talk of the snows and the difficulty the UK had in dealing with them.

Some fabrics are variably enough patterned that they could cover a few different temperatures, but I think that overall it will give the idea, and I am learning to relax and not worry about whether each fabric tells you the specific temperature unambiguously.  A little bit was cut off each to make a chart.

Next, I had to work out the pattern.  There was just enough freezer paper left, once I cut it up here and taped it together there.  I had been enjoying myself immensely the week before, making every possible chart in a spreadsheet.  That included working out which of the four sections per month would have 7 days and which would have 8 days, and then writing it all down reversed, because with freezer paper you are working in mirror image.

I drew my 4" x 12" sections with rulers, then subdivided them all into 7 or 8 days accordingly, and divided each of those sections into two, varying the proportions according to whether the day or night was longer on that date.  Marking them all up took a while, as they all needed the date, temperatures if the date had passed, and a little up arrow, which has proven to be invaluable.  I still ended up sewing two pieces together the wrong way around last night, but I noticed immediately and it was easily fixed.

Here's what they look like after each day's pieces have been cut up, ironed onto fabric, and the fabric has been marked up and the pieces drawn around.  After this, the pieces of paper are peeled off and binned, and the two pieces are sewn to each other, and then added to the seven or eight-day block they are part of. 

There's one piece for an earlier block where I copied in the wrong temperature and noticed a few days later, but it turned out to be fairly straightforward to unpick the offending piece, make a new paper template for it, and replace it with the right fabric.  It can be comforting to make mistakes early on, and know that you have a way to deal with them.

I was starting with the last block in May, but I wanted to see how this would look for a whole block, so I pulled out what I thought was the previous block for May.  It turned out to be the first block in May instead, leaving me with the two in between to catch up on.  I've now done the second one, so there's only the third to do and then the whole of May is done, as by now I've also finished the last block.  I've never been so interested in the weather forecast, and was downright excited when there was an overnight low 2 degrees that allowed me to use that pretty teal fabric for the first time.  I'll post the set once I've done that third block.

As expected, there are a lot of soft greens and golds together.  I'm really looking forward to seeing what the winter will look like, with those blues and greens, occasional purples and the odd flash of gold.  I've used a few reds so far, but I doubt I'll need them all that much.

It'll also show up starkly how unseasonal the weather is getting, like that worryingly warm patch in February, or the three hot days in April where I ended up basking in the hammock in R's garden in a tasteful nightie, because I didn't have any sundresses to hand.  I've noticed a couple of people on Instagram - Instagram appears to be The Place To Be for these quilts, and I finally sorted out joining - talking about how the weather is "in God's hands", which appears to be code for being climate change deniers.  Gah.  And when I'm seeing so many American quilters in Facebook groups talking about being flooded out, too.

Temperature quilt plans

I have this idea in my head that I only work on one quilt at a time.  OK, a piecing project at my flat and a quilting project for when I'm at R's flat every other week.  Fine, then, each of those, plus I have now fallen in love with temperature quilts, where you make a block each day.  That'll only be a little extra, right?

The idea with these is that you set out a code for which colour each temperature corresponds to, and then make a block for each day in the year, showing the temperature variations through the ebb and flow of colours.  I'm going to do the version with two pieces per day, one for the high temps and one for the low temps.  Since I'm starting halfway through the year, I'll make it to cover 2019, but when it gets to 2020, I'll be doing the block for that day for the previous year instead.  It's too much to catch up with otherwise.

There are several ways you can do this.  Flying geese blocks are popular, half-square triangles turn up in various incarnations, there are some exciting variants with hexagons, and sometimes people use strips.  If you are going to have the day of the month as your rows and the month as your columns, you end up with rectangular blocks if you want to end up with a square quilt.

Linen stack

I've decided to do two horizontal strips to make a block, stacked to make larger sections, which I suppose is a form of string quilt.  Right now I'm at R's and don't have access to my stash, but I've just received a set of linen blend samples in an order from Fabric Inspirations, so these work as a mock-up.  The strips won't be dead horizontal, but rather slightly angled and curved, giving it a more organic feel.

Temperature quilt by Erin

This is a traditional temperature quilt using flying geese, to give you an idea of how they most often look.  The centre triangle in each block shows the high temperatures, and the two smaller triangles on either side show the low temperatures.

As I will be using two strips for each day, I have divided each month into four sections, each made up of 7 or 8 days, so 14 or 16 strips.  After fretting a bit about whether I should try foundation piecing and if so how on earth to do it by hand, I realised that freezer paper templates will do the job beautifully.  I'll mark up some freezer paper, cut it into the sections, and then cut off each day's strips as I go.  The sections will be 4" x 12", giving a 48" quilt before borders.  That should be a nice size for a wall hanging, perhaps to go above my bed.

The quilter I got this idea from is Ann Brauer.  She makes beautiful quilts reminiscent of skies and seas, using lots of little stacked strips.  In her case, with machine piecing, she says she sews straight onto the batting, doing it in sections in a form of quilt as you go (QAYG).  I'm borrowing the sections idea, it seems to be enough to make it manageable to piece but not enough to take over and make it look too rigid.  Here is an example of her work, which shows how effective occasional contrasting strips can be.

Ann Brauer, Gentle Dawn

I love the way those deep oranges glow against the blues.

Ann Brauer, Purple Mountains

Ann Brauer, Summer on the Meadow

Looking at these made me realise that if I'm drawing those strips freehand, they don't have to be exact.  I can make the high temp strips taller when the days are shorter, and shorter in the winter when the days are longer.  I think that'll give a better feel for whether the warmer or cooler temperatures are more dominant, giving greater emphasis to the blue end of the colour range in the winter and the golds and reds in the summer.  It'll also add variety, along with the strip height naturally varying due to having either 7 or 8 days in a section.

The next question, of course, is colours.  Most of these quilts are based on a rainbow, often quite bright.  There's a lovely pair of flying geese quilts done by sisters in Alaska and California, where they've used similar colour schemes to produce very different results according to their different climates.  They're glorious, but they're brighter than I think I want in a large wall hanging.

Stacking those linen samples made me realise that a more muted colour scheme could look stunning.  I'm hoping to achieve something reminiscent of the Scottish landscape.  There will be lots of soft blues and greens, probably a few brownish colours on the way to the golds and rusts, and I want to try using lavenders, mauves and greys for the temperatures below freezing.  The "landscape quilts" section I'm building in my Pinterest is quite swoonworthy. Look at these, for example, by the textile artist Rachel Wright.

Rachel Wright, After the Storm

Rachel Wright, Into the Storm

Most of my stash is batiks, and while I think they will largely be too bright, there are plenty which have always been a bit too muted to use with the rest, and I'm eager to get home to them and see how they work together.

The quilt I'm actually working on at my flat is a little wheelchair quilt made from the scraps from R's bedspread, using randomised 3" half-square triangles.  I've already cut about a third of the pieces for that in one day, so it shouldn't take too long to get that part done.

I'll aim to begin the temperature quilt at the start of June, which gives me the next ten days to select fabrics and draw it out on the freezer paper, while also cutting my striped triangles for the wheelchair quilt.  R is away for a conference for the rest of this week, giving me the whole ten days in my flat instead of the usual week.  There will be much revelling in fabric!