Glasgow Skies

Hello out there,
its been a while so I hope there are still a few of you reading.
There has been a lot going on recently, much of it I either can't or would prefer not to talk about right now, some good, some bad and some decidedly ugly…….so lets look back instead

Late in 2012 I heard about the idea for a sky blanket, something similar swept Instagram towards the end of 2013, but with a different slant, a mood blanket. Anyway, back in late 2012 I decided that this was the sort of thing I could take on, one square, stripe etc every day for a year, given the amount I crochet that surely wasn't too much to ask.

S0 I set about my yarn stash, selecting my acrylic DK and picking and assigning different colours to different skies, I live in Glasgow so you can imagine, lots of greys, whites, the odd blue and yellow and a sparkle, I assigned them as follows:

• snowy/frosty days were to get a sparkly white square ( I must confess for a while the girls and I were so excited about this that there may be more sparkly days than there should as a hint of snow and we were pulling it out the bag)
• cloudy days were to be determined by the colour of the clouds so maybe white, light grey, dark grey…. I also had a really dark blue for stormy days
• clear days were to get blue, I had a cold icy blue, a warm sunny blue and various shades in-between
• rain would get grey - as again shade to be determined by just how wet it was
• sunny days - as in days when i had my sunglasses on would get yellow, I had a couple of warm shades for those gorgeous summer days and one ice yellow for those bright winter days when the sun is low and even though its -1 outside you still have the sunglasses on in the car!

So I began on January 1st 2013 with my first granny square. Initially I decided that, given that I live in glasgow where we can easily get four seasons in one day I would gauge the sky at a set time each day. I chose 12 noon. But this quickly proved unworkable as maybe there was a quick flash of sun/rain on an otherwise cloudy day, or else I was busy and just plain forgot. SO I resorted to plan B which was the majority vote - my girls and I would decide at the end of the day what the weather had mostly been like and decide a colour accordingly

for a few months it grew well, I'd forget the odd day, but could easily catch up, then as often happens life would get in the way, other things were going on and for a while I tried noting down the sky each day and making up my squares for the week on a sunday evening.

I chose to work with diagonal stripes, the only rule being that the weather is never identical two days in a row (no matter how heavy the rain!) so no squares side by side need be the same colour. The advantage of working diagonally was that if I got bored/gave up it wouldn't be too much work to square it off to make a smaller blanket. 

So on I plodded, sometimes with daily diligence, occasionally letting weeks go by where all I would do was scribble in my notebook a brief description of the sky that day. Sometimes I enjoyed it, others I would see the bag in the corner of the room and just groan. Slowly it grew and by the middle of the summer I was amazed by how many bright yellow squares I had acquired. In fact I was even accused of making it up or lying about where I lived. What I found fascinating is that living in the west of scotland we have a tendency to just assume the weather is rubbish but when you actually study the sky daily that just isn't the case.

By the autumn I could sense the end was in sight

I could roll it up, or lay it on a bed and pretend it was almost finished, if you just used soft focus on the missing corner!

In the end my blanket was made up of 357 four round granny squares, 17x21, the last week I used to add an edge, something I must confess I still have not completely finished seven months later. However here it is, the Glasgow Skies Blanket 2013. I enjoyed doing it, and the way it made me think about the weather and the sky colour each day, but I must confess, I am glad it is finished!!

 I enjoyed doing it, and the way it made me think about the weather and the sky colour each day, 

but I must confess, I am glad it is finished!!