You may be asking, what is a Temperature Quilt?? Basically it is a quilt that uses different colors to showcase the temperatures for a specific location throughout a year. My quilt is made up of half square triangles (one for each day of the year of 2021) that show the high and low temps by color. The end result would be different depending on your location and the year.

I live in the Midwest of the United States, so our temperatures can range from 0 to 90+ degrees. Because of this, I decided to select 20 different colors that would represent every 5 degree range between 0-100. You would need to determine how many colors to use based on your location’s normal temperature ranges.

Below is a photo of the fabrics I chose that are all Ruby & Bee Solids from Windham Fabrics.

Before I started, I created a chart of the temperature ranges and colors and then also wrote the ranges on scraps of each fabric as a reference when piecing the blocks. I found the best weather data resources to be www.timeanddate.com/weather and www.wunderground.com because they have historical data and will indicate both the high and low temperatures for each day of the year.

Once you have your colors selected and have chosen your favorite weather data source, it’s time to start making blocks! I started by cutting 5” x width of fabric strips for each color and then sub-cutting those into 5” squares so that I’d have them ready when needed. You will use these squares to create your half square triangles for each day.

Below is another in progress shot of how I would get fabric organized and my triangles ready to sew for roughly a month or so of dates. The nice thing about using the weather websites listed above is that you can go back to find the info. when you aren’t able to keep on top of the temps each and every day or week!

The method for arranging your blocks into the final quilt is explained in the video tutorial below. As you can tell from the photos, our weather was pretty mild in 2021 with the majority of the days being in the range of 61-80 degrees…I’m not complaining!!

I also just LOVE the backing fabric that I found for this quilt. It is Anna Maria Horner’s Echinacea Glow print (color is Algae) in case you use similar colors and would like to use the same for your quilt.

As I sit here and look at these photos again, it makes me want to make another temperature quilt, but I’ll likely wait another year or two before starting a new one. It will be fun to see the differences in each year!

A video tutorial showing how to create this Temperature Quilt is below and if you’d like a PDF of the pattern, coloring sheet, weather tracking chart and other materials I used to make my quilt, sign up to join Material Girl Sewciety!! You will receive new monthly PDF patterns along with access to a library of other patterns, video tutorials, tools, resources and a discount in my shop.

Thanks for stopping by,

Amanda xoxo