Friday 25 October 2013

My Sky Blanket... Finally Finished!

Remember my sky blanket? After finishing it last month I have finally taken some nice photos of it to share with you guys. Hurrah!


(Big thanks to my parents for holding it up for that photo!)

 

The blanket was inspired by / based on Lea Redmond's awesome Sky Scarf project where you knit a row of a scarf each day for a year, based on the weather that day.

 

I loved this idea but decided to knit a blanket instead so I'd end up with a cosy blanket I could use year after year instead of a scarf that would be fun to knit but which (being honest with myself) I knew I'd never wear. I also thought knitting blanket squares would make for a more portable project than having to carry a half-finished scarf around with me for months.

I started on 1st January 2012, and knitted a square for 360 days.

 

The plan was to sew the blanket together gradually (each week or so) as I knitted more squares but I fell a little behind at the end of the year when I was busy with a) the Christmas season in my shops and b) working on my new book. Then this year I just got a bit of project fatigue and couldn't face sewing in all those yarn ends! (So very many ends)  .


I got there eventually though and I cannot even begin to tell you how thrilled I am with how this project has turned out. I think the finished blanket looks gorgeous and I am still totally in love with the concept - a blanket that's a record of (almost) a year of the weather! It makes me happy every time I look at it.

Here are some snaps of the blanket as it grew...

February:

  
April:


June:


August:


Early November:


And here it is, finished! Woohoo!


I arranged the squares running from left to right in rows, like a calendar. In the above photo, the top left square is day #1 and the bottom right square is day #360.


I love the mix of these colours together! Because each square is knitted with two strands of double-knit yarn, the finished blanket is thick and very cosy. 


The back looks like this:

 

Oh, and there's a pretty blue and white button sewn onto one corner so I'll always be able to tell where the year of squares begins. 

 

You can find instructions for knitting a sky scarf here but if you want to knit a blanket just like mine, I'll be sharing all the info about how I made my blanket in a "how to" post in a week or two :)

Update: find out how to knit your own sky blanket HERE.

18 comments:

hanna Kim said...

So beautiful. :)
I would like to see made​​.

Sheila Khan said...

It looks wonderful and what a great idea.

homemade@myplace said...

My compliments!!!!!
xxxx Ale

♥ Nia said...

Congrats on your finish!! :D

Astrid (ach_gott) said...

Wonderful! I love it!
I would like to make one on my own and so I'm very interested in your "How to".

xxx from Germany
Astrid

Melissa said...

Oh it's beautiful!

Silvia LGD (Little Green Doll) said...

Wow! Congratulations! It's wonderful!

Leanne at Knit me a cake said...

I love this idea and can't wait to see the how to guide for putting it together. I think I may have found my 2014 project. :)

ThirdMargaret said...

Ohmygoodness! That is a beautiful blanket and I love the concept. Plus as a very not-so-skilled knitter I know I could handle this. I am delighted I found your blog and look forward to the how-to.

xo, meg

Charlotte said...

it's brilliant! Such a great idea :-)

Fran said...

Ah, well done! Enjoy your cosy blanket :-)

Rebeckah Austin said...

I love it!

Meg Lyons said...

I love the way yours turned out! Mine was going to be a blanket, but was barely lap-sized. . . so I turned it into a pillow!

http://barefootcrafting.blogspot.com/2013/04/sky-blanket-update.html

hima-rain said...

woooow awesome *smile

bairozan said...

I really love it, you're a hero :) Both the idea and the blanket are awesome!

Bugs and Fishes said...

Thanks for the comments everyone xxx

This has been such a fun project to work on! Knitting the sky = such a cool idea :)

ThirdMargaret - that's one of the aweome things about the sky scarf project (and my blanket version), you can make something really unique and special with very basic knitting skills.

Meg - so great to see how yours turned out! Love the idea of turning it into a pillow so you'll actually use it :)

velvet_donkey said...

Very pretty! The colours/ weather changes are even more evenly distributed then I thought they'd be- interesting! Congratulations on finishing it :)

Bugs and Fishes said...

Thanks! I think if I'd gone for an "average" of what the weather was like that day (mostly cloudy, mostly sunny, etc) the distribution of colours would have been quite different - there were days that were miserable but that just happened to brighten up around midday when I looked at the sky to choose my colours, and vice versa! :)