Temperature Quilt Pattern and Quilt Along

Have you been wanting to make a Temperature quilt? Here’s a fun temperature quilt pattern that will take in the daily temperatures in a block that you will sew up weekly.

Temperature quilts are beautiful, colorful, fun-to-make fabric mementos of the new year to come. Read on for ideas and tips on how to make a temperature quilt for yourself!

I have been tossing the idea around for quite a few years… but haven’t dove in, until now.

After looking I didn’t find a pattern that I truly liked either – so in Becky fashion I came up with my own. It’s based on the Rocky Road to Kansas quilt block.

What is a Temperature Quilt?

The idea behind temperature quilts is pretty straightforward. You are taking the temperature of the day – some do both the high and low of the daily and make a quilt block representing it.

By the end of the year, you’ll have a collection of fabric that represents the years temperature- think of it as a memory quilt of weather.

My husband watches the weather – I think it could almost be thought of as his hobby. lol So I am hoping he’ll enjoy the quilt when it’s finished this time next year.

How to Make a Temperature Quilt – Start with the Fabric

There are a few options when it comes to the fabric for temperature quilts. You can use prints… but I highly recommend that if you do that they read as a solid. If there is a print on the fabric, it’s a tone of the background and blends right in.

You don’t really want to use multi colored fabric – batiks may be fine, depending on the dye. You don’t want large flowers or prints as depending on where you cut the fabric, it may read as a different color.

Solid fabric really is perfect for this kind of a quilt.

Choose Your Colors and Assign Temperatures

Another thing that you’ll want to begin with is to make a swatch page of what temperature is represented by what fabric.

The pattern will include both one that is filled out and ready to go, and a blank one just in case you want to control more of the temperature – depending on where you live, the temp may go above 100 a lot and you’ll want to add some there or super cold on the other end.

Print off as many of the blanks as you need to have more colors and less than 9 degrees in between each color if you’d like.

Make this work for you and what you want to see in your quilt!

As for the background, I suggest keeping it the same or scrappy (but all reads the same) A light or even a dark background would be great. If you do go with a dark background, make sure there is enough contrast with the other fabrics you have chosen to use with the temperature colors.

Getting Organized and Staying the Way

I suggest keeping your printed pages, swatches and layouts in a binder or project bag. This way you know exactly what fabric you need for the days when you are ready to sew up your block.

Also, when you have sewn up your block, you will need to pin and label your block with the correct week.

So when you are finished and ready to assemble the quilt top, you can place your weeks in order from the beginning.

Use the pattern to keep track of the daily temperatures. There is one per each half of the year.

I only added one spot for the temperature – if you are wanting two, the highest and lowest you’ll have to print off a second copy of each and label the top HIGH or LOW.

The pattern that I am using only has need of one temperature per day.

Rocky Weather Temperature Quilt Pattern

One thing I am doing a little differently is that the quilt is based on the 52 weeks in the year.

So, every week we will be sewing up one block.

We will not start until January 15th, keeping us 2 weeks behind the weather. This will allow some forgiveness on ourselves and help keep us ‘caught’ up.

I didn’t want to feel super pressured with this, so this 2 week behind schedule will allow us to do that.

Temperature Quilt Basic Steps:

1- Sew a block for each week of the year, using the list to track the temp daily. Label each block with week 1, week 2, week 3 etc. to keep track of what the blocks represent.

2- Lay the blocks out in a design you like (I’ll share some options when it comes time to put the quilt together, but really – it’s going to be up to you to decide how it is finished)

If you are using the paper piecing method, you’ll want to remove your paper prior to sewing in rows and finishing the quilt top.

3- Add 4 – 8 1/2″ x 8 1/2″ blank square to the quilt top layout This is a little off, but there are only 52 weeks in the 2024 year and soooo we don’t have quite enough for a quilt top that is a nice shape and size. So, the 4 additional spacer blocks are there to finish the top. I am planning on putting them in the four corners, but will make a final decision when the quilt top is ready to be put together.

4- Layer your quilt top, batting and backing. Finish with quilting and binding.

Don’t forget to put a label and a year that the temperature represents.

Temperature Quilt Block

This block is somewhat easy to make – using paper piecing method.

There are two options for the block, Monday in the corner or Sunday in the corner. Once you decide which one you want to do – make sure you keep all the Mondays in the corner or Sundays… so all the blocks are the same.

I thought at the end – opposite to the corner where the first day starts, you could add a weekly average as well. This is optional. You can decide for yourself what you prefer.

Here are a few Rocky Weather Temperature Quilt Layout Ideas:

Rocky Weather Temperature Quilt Along

January 16th we’ll be sewing up the first weeks block!

After that, we’ll sew one block a week or even 4 blocks per month for this…. there will be a video posted as well at putting the block together, which you can follow each week.

The video will be put onto the YouTube channel – follow along here.

The blocks are 8 1/2′ x 8 1/2″ unfinished so they will be 8″ x 8″ finished.

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