Recording the weather, one stitch at a time

Patti Moran's temperature blanket as of February 26, 2015

Wednesday, March 4, 2015, 4:25 PM - The winter of 2015 will go down in the history books for a number of reasons, but Patti Moran will have a different kind of record to point to in years to come.

The Ottawa resident is crocheting an afghan with an unusual twist: each row represents the temperature on the day it was stitched.
Every day, Moran notes the temperature at noon, then crochets a row of the blanket in a corresponding colour.
Because Ottawa can see temperatures ranging from -40°C to +40°C in the run of a year, Moran has had to use a broad colour scheme for the blanket.
“I’m using 24 colours – each one has about three degrees associated with it, except zero. Zero has just the one,” she says.

Moran, a freelance graphic designer, was inspired by similar projects shared online by other crochet enthusiasts.

“Some people make blankets, some people make scarves … I’m a little bit of a nerd and I just thought the idea was really neat, a merging of my love of crochet and my nerdiness,” she says.

Moran began the project on January 1st; by the time she’s finished the blanket on December 31st, it will be big enough to cover a double bed and will serve as a beautiful record of the year’s weather.

“I’ve made afghans before, but never one this big,” she says. “This is probably my most ambitious project ever.”

Moran has not recorded a noon temperature above zero at her home since the beginning of the year, and the lowest temperature she’s recorded was -23°C.

“My colours were chosen to match the relative coolness or warmness of the temperatures, not unlike the weather maps you put up. Obviously, since it's been very cold here for the past two months, my blanket is very heavy in the cool blue tones,” she explains.

“I'm really anxious to have an excuse to start using my warmer colours!”