Off the Shelf

Do you have a stack mid-finished crafty projects that seem to just get bigger on its own? Or is that just me?

Well, I’m intent on getting all my works-in-progress done! Starting with my unfinished Star Wars Temperature Blanket projects.

Time to tackle the WIPs!

Temperature Blanket

First, allow me to explain what a temperature blanket is if you don’t know. A temperature blanket—or any applicable project—is one in which one records the temperatures of a location for a range of time, usually a full year, and the color changes correspond to specific temperature ranges.

These have been used as popular projects to make a blanket or other project within a year, to record special years in a person’s life (birth years, marriage years, etc.), and to record notable timelines in an artistic way.

While I love seeing the personalized blankets, scarves, and such that others have made with their impressive crochet, knitting, or sewing skills, I opted to make my temperature blanket project centered around some of my favorite nerd-focused films. The original Star Wars movies.

Star Wars Temperature Blankets

For my blankets, I chose the years in which the films came out and the temperatures from the most notable filming locations. I’ve kept the color palette for the temperatures consistent for all the blankets, so one blanket might look quite different than the others simply because of the filming location temperatures used in each movie.

Since I chose to make the blankets out of panels that represented each month, it was easy to assemble them like a grid and separate them with simple black crochet strips to make the colors pop.

Empire Strikes Back

Because I had so many projects going on at once when I started this temperature blanket project, I only managed to finish the “A New Hope” blanket and most of “The Empire Strikes Back”.

What remained missing was the final touch! The strips of tapestry crochet at the reads “Star Wars” at the top and the one that reads “Empire Strikes Back” at the bottom.

I’m picking up where I left off and finishing up the “Empire Strikes Back” temperature blanket. And with a little time management, I hope to do the “Return of the Jedi blanket soon after.

Part Way There

While my hands have been a tad achier from the fibro lately, I did manage to stitch up about half of the “Empire Strikes Back” tapestry crochet panel. And I consider that a win!

I’d forgotten that it took a while to stitch these pieces up, even if on the whole, they are a simple 2-color change work throughout. But I just love the effect of the bold golden yellow amidst the black yarn, chosen to match intro Opening Crawl text colors against the darkness of space in the background.

Bit by Bit

In my next update, I’ll be sure to get myself much further along so you can all see the text panel attached to the blanket before I tackle the next panel.

Expect a new crochet pattern before the next blanket update though!

Remember to drink water, have a snack if you haven’t eaten, and pause and stretch a bit if you’ve been down too long.

And remember that you can follow Family Craft Studio on Instagram, Pinterest, and Facebook.

Happy crafting!