Temperature quilts are a “thing”

Temperature quilts are all the rage right now in all sorts of crafting circles – knitting, crocheting, cross stitching, and, yes, most assuredly quilting. So of course I have to try my hand at one (or more). But am I going simple? Am I using a readily available pattern? If you know me at all, your answer to both of these questions is “probably not”. And you'd be right.

Given my love of (okay, borderline obsession with) cats, you'll be glad to know that they are included in my temperature quilt. As in, not only are they the individual day blocks, they are also the overall shape of the design.

My pattern is a modification of a cross stitch pattern that I found (and purchased) online in the shape of a cat head. The designer/artist used one color per day, probably the average temp, I didn't read too closely as I was only interested in the design components and how to turn them into quilt blocks.

I thought this was just a super cool design for a temperature quilt. Based on the number of stitches in the cross stitch pattern, I determined the size I wanted the final large design to be which gave me the info I needed to figure out the size of the daily heads. Fortunately, it was a nice round number (full inches) so was easy to design a block for.

Each of the squares in the large design is a daily cat head block.

The next step was to figure out how many degrees I wanted each of my colors to be and how many colors I wanted to use. Then to match each range to a color.

To keep track of what's what, I use a chart/sheet provided by Jaybird Quilts as part of her Temperature Quilt Sew-Along (which I have joined).

I decided to go against convention and not start with blues for colder temperatures and go to reds for the hotter end of the range.

Now that I have this figured out, it's time to track my temperatures and make the cats!

I'm tracking my temperatures with another form from Jaybird Quilts. It's all set up with months and days and blanks for the highs and lows. I marked my form up with info on the length of the columns that will make up the final big design when assembled.

Because I am who I am, I can't go with simple one-color, one-temperature cat heads, I have to figure out how to make them 2 colors so I can show lows and highs for the day. And I did. Not even too complicated a block either. The complicated part is, when putting it together, remembering that the low temps go on the left and the high temps on the right. (I have a couple of backwards assembled cats that I've pulled apart to be used in other blocks if I'm able to later.)

I pre-cut my pieces for assembling my blocks and bagged them with temperature range and size on the bag for ease of locating what I need when I need it. I've got them in order from low to high temp in a small plastic bin that I can take out of the larger bin to make it easier to pull my pieces.

I also have the color name noted in case I run out in the future. I have three more fat quarter bundles of these colors so hopefully running out won't be an issue. But I'm prepared.

Now the fun part – assembly!!

They actually go together pretty quick. Especially since they aren't that big. And by saving them up, doing a few days at a time, I can chain piece.

Once I have enough heads together, I can put together a column, always making sure to have them in the correct order.

I decided that since I had six columns assembled (January through March), I would start working on the sashing and larger background pieces for each column and start putting them together into a cat head.