January OMG : Starting the 2019 Temperature Project

Hi everyone! I have (reluctantly) returned to the real world after our New Year's / Birthday break and, no surprise, feel like I am somehow way behind on this "kicking off 2019" thing. However, though it feels like December 31 was a loooong time ago, I realize today is only January 4 and there's time to get going. *IF* I set it as my One Monthly Goal!!!

In 2017 I made a temperature afghan. I loved the process of picking out the yarn -- in my project, a  monochromatic "Fifteen Shades of Grey" -- and I loved tracking the temperatures and watching the colors shift over the course of the year. Who cares if it ended up nearly 10 feet long; it's warm and cozy and really nice on our big bed.

But I knew I didn't need another massive afghan, so wanted to find another project to do. I thought about some sort of cross stitch project, or even a pillow top. But nothing really felt right. Then I remembered this lovely old thing in my basement:

note Kiki in the background...

When I was growing up we had two of these; one with a burgundy cushion and this one with a green cushion. I don't know what happened to the other one, but I insisted that I had to have it, and often thought of stitching a needlepoint piece and recovering the sadly ripped leather cushion. But then it just languished in my basement, an odd UFO.

I decided that, somehow, I would chart out a simple pattern and spend 2019 tracking the temperature in needlepoint. This was easier said than done -- it's HARD to chart out 365 spaces, darn it! Lots of sketches, tests, and recounts. Oh, and of course it's not a true rectangle, and there are those cutouts to contend with!

But finally, with some fudging and some shifting, a 365-space grid was sketched on an old piece of needlepoint canvas:

The center piece will include the year and a very simple border, and then the background of it will be whatever color corresponds with the temperature. But what color would that be, I hear you ask!

I wanted something with a little color, but I'm not super into rainbows. I recently crocheted a scarf from Mandala yarn that was in a muted rainbow, so I used that as my inspiration and spent a lot of time trying to choose colors of DMC tapestry wool... without being able to see any of them in person. That said, when they all arrived, I was really happy with the range -- everything is a bit muted or, as DMC calls it, "Drab".

Of course, one can't predict the temperatures for the coming year, but I made some guesses and ordered between 2 and 7 skeins of each color. The nice thing about this project is if I need to wait to restock a color, I can keep working on other days, unlike with my temperature afghan!

My One Monthly Goal for January is to really get going on this -- get the canvas in a frame and get stitching. Oh, and to decide what to call this project. Temperature Needlepoint? Temperature Tapestry? Temperature Topper???

This link-up is organized by Elm Street Quilts, you can check out all the monthly projects on the January Link-up Page.

Elm Street Quilts One Monthly Goal January Link-up

Oh, and here's a gratuitous photo of one of my adorable cats...