Crochet Mood Blanket (another crochet-along!)

23 is actually quite balmy compared to the past week.  My goodness, winter is here!  We’re buckling down under lots of snow (with another 6″ on the way) and icy cold temperatures that are coming today and tomorrow.  Those temperatures above are in Fahrenheit, by the way, and it’s days like these that make me so grateful that I don’t have to go out in this cold.  Almost all the schools around here have been closed anyway, even if I didn’t homeschool my boys, but there’s something a little disconcerting about being advised not to leave your home unless absolutely necessary.

It’s times like these where my thoughts start wandering: what will we do if we lose electricity (and therefore heat, since our heat is electric)?  We have no fireplace.  How did people survive conditions like these before the advent of HVAC?  I suppose a fireplace, but if your wood became wet or if you ran out… what did people do?  Maybe some historical sleuthing (and a great big dose of appreciation for modernity) will be on the list for indoor activities this week.

But, there’s nothing like making the most of a bad situation!  Even though we’re cramped inside, I have plenty of crochet to keep me busy!  I have a huge list of crochet and crafting resolutions that I made up for the New Year (I am notorious for being overly ambitious when it comes to New Year’s resolutions).  But I’ll have to share those with you another day, because today I am excited about a new project that I’ve just started:

To tell you the truth, I started on this a little later than you might have imagined.  As I was browsing through Instagram on the first day of the year, I noticed that there were a lot of posts tagged with #crochetmoodblanket2014.  What is this?  I found myself asking.  Inspired, I tracked down the original (instagram) post.

Crochet Mood Blanket is something started by mummy_stacey, and the basic premise is that you make a square for each day of the year (or once a week if you prefer) coordinating to your mood for that day/week.  At the end of the year, you have a blanket that reflects your year.  How exciting! There is a Facebook group for it as well with even more details, if you’re interested.

I have had some colors put aside for a knit afghan that I was (eventually) going to get around to, and I figured since the colors were already selected and purchased, I would just go ahead and use them for the mood afghan instead.  The yarn is Vanna’s Colors, and I searched around on Ravelry for a little while to find an appropriate pattern.  Some people are making lovely, detailed squares, but I know if I’m going to be making one of these a day for a year, it’s going to have to be something simple, easy, and most importantly: small.  Eventually, I settled upon this pattern here, a simple Polka Dot motif. (That’s a free Ravelry download.)

Of all the decisions that I’ve had to make for this mood blanket, though, by far the most difficult was narrowing down and labeling my moods!  I switched them plenty of times, and I still may alter them as I go along, but for now, I’ve decided on these basic ones:

As you can see, I’m trying to consciously focus on the more optimistic moods.  I certainly don’t want to remember a year of unhappiness, and it’s not hard to look for the bright side of things, though I have included the “stressed/rough day” category, because they’ll inevitably happen (hopefully with great infrequency this year!).

So now I have joined yet another crochet-along.  It’s going to be quite a busy year!

~ Mellie ★