According to folklore the Woolly Bear Caterpillar can predict the upcoming winter weather. 😉 😉
It says you can know what weather to expect by their color. When they are all black, it is believed the winter will be colder with more snow.
A wider rusty-brown middle band is said to predict a milder winter. Wider black bands on either end is said to predict colder beginning and ending winter months.
While there is no scientific basis for this, it was fun watching these caterpillars when our kids were little.
The meteorologists talk about El Nino and what that has meant in the past.
The Farmer’s Almanac makes an attempt to share an opinion.
What Quilters Do
Quilters don’t predict but some do record temperatures in what is called a Temperature Quilt. Colors are assigned to every 10-degrees of temperature. Then the high temperature for each day is assigned the appropriate color and added to the quilt. Often the colors range from red (for hot) to blue (for cold) with some variations or other colors in between.
I’ve seen one that uses HSTs for each day. Half for the High Temperature and Half for the Low Temperature. Other patterns have just Squares, Apple Core Blocks or Diamond Blocks. You can chose whatever blocks you want to use.
I’ve seen several variations and some are rather creative. I think the simplest may be 12 columns (one for each month) of 31 blocks. For months that have less than 31 days a neutral color block is added for the rest of the days. Sashing can be added between the columns to add extra width.
Fat Quarter Shop has a couple of free PDF patterns. Missouri Star Quilt Co. has a Free Planning Worksheet. Moda Fabrics has some helpful information on their blog. Scroll down to get your cooy of their Temperature Planning Worksheet. You can Google to find other free and paid patterns. I found this helpful information at Inland Empire Modern Quilt Guild (scroll down to find the Temperature Quilt Download).
I’ve never been organized enough to pick the colors and prepare the fabric in advanced. I guess this will be on my Bucket List for a while.
Hope you are making progress on whatever you are stitching this week!
Happy Stitching!
Quilt Mouse
