Ideas for a year long craft project

I'm really enjoying working on my Sky Blanket, a year long craft project where each day I'll crochet a row of a blanket inspired by the colour of the sky that day. It's also got me looking ahead to what I'll do when the blanket is completed, and thinking about other long term craft projects that focus on recording something about each day.

So I'm sharing some of the ideas that I've found in the hope that it might inspire both myself and others for a future project!

Sky Blanket

I worked on my Sky Blanket along with a group of other bloggers and crafters, sharing our progress across social media using #skyblanket2016. When planning my blanket I was very much inspired by the knitted blanket that I saw over at This Little Space of Mine - The Story of the Knitted Sky Blanket. Although mine is going to look quite different as it is crochet and stripy, it's lovely to see a completed blanket made by someone else in the UK, and this post has lots of fab in progress photographs.

Here's the finished blanket - it's fantastic!

Photo credit This Little Space of Mine

Weather Blanket

My sky blanket is fairly simple, mainly sticking to blues and greys, but I have loved seeing how creative some of the other participants are being, using all sorts of different shades that they've spotted in the sky, including sunrises, sunsets, and different stitches to reflect the texture of the sky. It made me think about how you could expand the theme to really try and capture the weather each day as well as the colour of the sky. For example, I love the idea of including a glittery yarn or thread to reflect rain, big puffy stitches for snow, yellow circles for sunshine, fluffy yarn for fog and so on.

The blanket below from Eclectic Enchantments is a brilliant example:

Photo credit Eclectic Enchantments

Temperature Blanket

On a similar note, something that I am definitely considering making is a Temperature Blanket, or perhaps for a change of scale reducing the size and making a Temperature Scarf. I'd start by choosing a key with a different colour for temperature brackets, probably choosing the highest temperature each day or perhaps at a certain time each day. The thing that appeals to me about this project is that you an easily look up historical data, so if you miss a day then you can catch up. You could also even go back and knit or crochet a blanket based on a year in the past, perhaps the first year of a child's life or any other year with particular significance.

This is a useful blog post if you are considering a temperature blanket, including tips as well as a scale and pattern - Crocheted Temperature Blanket at Stitching in the Woods - and this is picture of her beautiful blanket so far:

Photo credit Stitching in the Woods

Mood Blanket

I also like the idea of using knitting or crochet to reflect my mood for the day, although I find that my mood changes so frequently it might be a little difficult to keep track of it! It looks as though the idea was started back in 2014 by Stacey Wentford-Hall, and you can read a great article about her and the group of crafters that completed a blanket back then - Crochet Mood Blanket 2014. If you search online there are some fab examples where crafters have not only completed a coloured square based on their mood, but also decorated the squares to incorporate other things that happened during the day.

Roll of the Die Afghan

With a Roll of the Die blanket you roll a die to decide the colour for each row, starting with a selection of six complementary colours. I like this idea for a truly random blanket or scarf.

Daily photography

Moving on from knitting and crochet, I do love the idea of taking a photo each day and there are various social media challenges which involve sharing a daily photo. I think that I'd also want a tangible reminder though, and so I'd get them all printed or made up into a photo book that I could look back on, probably with some text to explain why I'd chosen that picture along with when it was taken and who it featured.

Trying out a new technique every day or week to make a larger project

I quite like the idea of trying out something new everyday, and something that particularly appeals to me at the moment is trying a new knitting or crochet stitch each day and putting them all together to make something. I'd really like to attempt a new granny square pattern each day, or perhaps each week, then join them all together for a blanket.

Finishing up those works in progress

Finally, this would probably be more suited to a monthly challenge, but I'm sure that I could find at least 12 unfinished craft projects that I could schedule in, so that one would be completed each month!

I hope that I've shared some ideas to inspire!

You can also find some fantastic tips here - How to plan a year-long crochet temperature project - with valuable tips for all sorts of conceptual craft projects.

Have any of these projects inspired you? Or do you have any more ideas? I'd love to hear them!