What, you might ask, is a temperature quilt?
Temperature quilts are a fairly recent phenomenon. I first became aware of them towards the end of 2018 when someone I follow on Instagram posted her fabrics for a quilt she was going to make the following year. Suitably intrigued, I took a look at the #temperaturequilt hashtag to find all these wonderful quilts being made.
Essentially, a temperature quilt is a quilt made using a simple pieced or applique block. The fabrics used for a block are dependent on the high and low temperatures on each day in a year. Fabrics are chosen to represent a range of temperatures in a typical year where you live, with each fabric being allocated to a shorter range of temperatures. Here in the UK I choose at least twenty fabrics for a range of temperatures between -6 deg C and the mid 30s and I allow 2 deg C for each fabric.
I made my first temperature quilt in 2019 using a simple Orange Peel block for my blocks, which I thought I'd be able to make quite quickly and easily each day. Remember, you are going to be making 365 of these blocks!
A rectangular block makes arranging the blocks into a quilt quite easy as you can join them together in columns; one column for each month.
It is customary to add a fabric key to the quilt, whether it is on the front as I did with my 2019 quilt, or on the back as part of a pieced backing. If you wish you can add the temperatures the fabrics represent as well as the year.
So, if you are looking for a simple quilt to make in the New Year, then maybe give making a temperature quilt a go. In my next post I'll give you some tips and ideas of how to make one.