How to Make a Two Tone Temperature Quilt

I had so much fun making my temperature quilt last year that I wanted to make another. This time around I wanted to use a different block design and I didn’t want to make a rainbow quilt. This tutorial is for a two tone temperature quilt.

I pulled together lots of blues and greens with a gray background. I arranged my fabrics from lightest blues for the coldest temperatures, up through darkest blues, and then from darkest greens on towards lightest greens for the hottest temperatures.

To make sure that my blues went from lightest to darkest, and for my greens to go from darkest to lightest, I used the monotone feature to look at the fabrics in gray scale.

In addition to the color palette, there are two other big changes to this quilt from the one I made last year. Both involve the temperature range.

First of all, the historical data for 1982 was incomplete. Many (most) overnight lows were recorded as being 0*F. That might happen once every billion years in the Seattle area, and if it does it’s in the dead of winter, not 60% of the time, including in the summers. This temperature quilt only shows the daily high temperatures. The tutorial does include information for those of you wanting to make your temperature quilt from this template but with highs and lows.

The second big change is in the hottest hots and coldest colds. Even accounting for no overnight lows, the lowest high was 36* which was about 10-12* warmer than the year before. Also, the temperature never went above 91*, which was also about 10* off from the previous year.

To make these numbers work, but still have a variety of fabrics, I worked with 3* increments.

How to Make a Two Tone Temperature Quilt

Making Daily Rectangles

This quilt is made from 2½” by 4½” rectangles of color, moving through a background of gray. In order to get the wavy effect, some days have a 2½” background square above or below the color, and some have a 2½” by 1½” rectangle both above and below. The longer background rectangles start and end the quilt.

Working 4 days at a time, pull out the four fabrics needed for the temperatures for the first four days.

Start every set of four (and every row) with two smaller background rectangles, one placed above the 2½” by 4½” rectangle of the day and one placed below. The third rectangle also needs two small background rectangles.

The second rectangle of the day gets a 2½” square below. The fourth and final daily rectangle has a 2½” square placed above. Every set of four will be made in this same layout.

Sew all background squares and rectangles to the daily rectangles. Press towards the background fabric.

Sew into pairs and then sew the pairs into sets of four.

This is what an entire row will look like once the days are all sewn to each other.

And the quilt top as a whole.

If you like to have these graphics available as a design sheet, both are available (for free!) right here: Color Design Sheets. Using these can help you to keep track of which day needs two smaller background rectangles, and which days need just one square of background, as well as whether that background goes above or below the daily temperature fabric.

Now, if you do want to use both high and low temperatures, the two tone temperature quilt will still go together in much the same way. The only difference, is that rather than starting with a 2½” by 4½” rectangle, you’ll start with a 2½” square of the high, and a 2½” square of the low. Sew the squares together, which gives you a 2½” by 4½” unit, and then add the necessary background. Here’s an example of what it might look like:

Making Rows and the Quilt Top

This quilt runs from August 13, 1982 to August 13, 1983. Because this quilt starts and ends in the middle of a month, I decided not to have each month in its own row. Instead, this quilt is made of 12 rows of 31 days. If you do the math, that is 372 days which is longer than the 366 I need. So, my first three “days” are actually just background fabric. My last three, at the bottom of the quilt will be the same.

Here is the starting background, as well as the first day.

This is the day I became a big sister! Also, it was only 64*, in the middle of August! Oh! And it was a Friday the 13^th. Quite the auspicious beginning. Really, of all those things, the cold August day is the one that seems the oddest.

And the next day, slightly warmer, but still unseasonably cold. Also, it’s funny to have the darkest blues be mid-60s. When I made my own temperature quilt last year, navy blue was the 40-ish temperature. That’s what’s so great about a two tone temperature quilt, it just throws out all those pre-conceived notions of what colors mean.

Continuing on, a few more days at a time.

One thing that I learned last year (although not until the 3^rd or 4^th month) is that it’s easier to sew 4 days together, and then set them aside, rather than sewing all 31 days into a long row.

I label each set of 4 to keep track.

I keep the sets of four separate from others until I move on to the next row, and then I match them up, to sew to the set of four below.

Make sure to alternate direction for sewing these rows together.

Alternating direction for sewing as well as for pressing helps to keep the corners crisp and helps the whole quilt nice and flat.

The decision on when to put the entire row together is up to you. You could do it one row at a time. Or at this point, which would be two rows at a time. My goal was to match the 30 seams from each row the least number of times.