The first few days of the Temperature scarf

I must get back to my Kaffe Fassett squares, and all those other unfinished objects, but on the solstice, I started my Temperature Scarf. You can see the first day has pale blue -- that is the coldest it has been. The last few days I have used the green variegated, which is +4ºC or higher, but this warm spell won't last, and we can get back to the chilly blues.

I am using a garter stitch chevron pattern from 200 Ripple Stitches. (Weird prejudice: ripples are for crochet and chevrons are for knitting, surely!) I got this book from the library in an attempt to seduce Elaine into crocheting something other than straight lines, but I don't think she has had a chance to even look at it yet.

I started on 4.5 mm needles, but after a few days decided the fabric was too stiff, so changed to 5s, after carefully noting on 2015's calendar to go back to 4.5s a few days before the winter solstice, to make things symmetrical!

I get my data from here; at the bottom of the page it gives you yesterday's high and low temperatures. So since I started knitting on Dec 21, the first date represented is Dec 20. (The colour code is in this post; I use one yarn for the high temperature and one for the low. You can see in the middle there were a couple of days where it didn't get much colder at night and I used two strands of plain green.)

The Koigu is beautiful yarn; I'm quite looking forward to my one little garter ridge each day!

The Solstice has come

And I say, thank goodness!

I have started my temperature scarf. I cast on this morning, recording yesterday's temperature data (high of about 0ºC and low of -6º). Not much to see, but I think I'll aim for weekly pictures through the year.

And, we interrupt this holiday advent songfest to throw in an ad for pop:

Temperature scarf

I made my way to the yarn shop yesterday, after a brief conversation with my resident physicist, who tells me that green should be at 0ºC. Who ever heard of that? Oh, well, it kind of makes things easier to just have a spectrum of colours.

Red for hot, through green at 0, to blue and indigo for cold. I'm hoping I don't have to get more colder yarns, because it's already freezing during the day, and, in fact, snowing at this very moment! (I will resist the obvious temptation to use some sort of fuzzy or sparkly yarn for snow days.)

The darkest blue, on the right, will be for -15º and lower, bright blue for -10 to -14, pretty variegated icy colours for -3 to -9, and green for -3 to +3.

Green variegated for 4 to 10, yellow variegated for 11 to 15, yellow/orange for 16 to 20, orange variegated for 21 to 27 and red for 28 and above.

I was worried that I'd need more on either end of this scale. That is why the colours have to stretch to a bit more (sometimes) than the 5 degrees I had initially thought.  Also, it's the time of year when all Torontonians forget that it ever gets warm here. We are bundled up for our months and months of cold and can't think beyond that. Really, it'll be 28 degrees here sometime in the next year??

I'm sure that if next October I find I need more 10º yarn, I won't be able to match dye lots or even colours, but then again I am equally sure that I can't need more than 160 metres of any one colour. Right?

This all gets lovingly put away till the winter solstice, when I shall cast on. Cast on what, though? A plain garter or seed-stitch scarf? A 10-stitch blanket? I think I'll find a two-row lace pattern and make a scarf out of that.

But who knows, it's weeks away and I have a man-sized sweater to finish!