Rita's Temperature Quilt

Rita's project bin

Goal number six on my June list was to begin to decode my friend, Rita's Temperature Quilt project. Cancer took Rita last January. Her husband asked if someone could finish the temperature quilt that she began in 2021. In March, I took her project box and a box labeled temperature quilt home. About all that I remembered from her project was that she was making a braid design. 

Rita's notes

Inside the tub were a few fabrics and a folder containing her notes. She also had a box of fabrics with a lot of the fabrics marked as to the temperature range. Rita's fabrics all came from her stash. She changed fabrics every two degrees and her temperature range ran from under 20 degrees to 114 degrees Fahrenheit. I was impressed that she gathered the ALL the fabrics from her stash!

Box of fabrics

I took the bin and the supporting fabrics home with me at the end of March. I didn't look carefully at the tub nor the fabric box until this week. I fully expected that I would need to sew some of the days. 

Braids and legend

A welcome surprise was that Rita had sewn all the days of the year. The strips, in person, aren't as vibrant as they appear in the photo, but, the effect is just as wonderful. I'm impressed with how well her stash worked for this project!

Rita also had sewn her legend which are the rectangles at the base of the braided strips. She didn't leave notes on what she was thinking for the filler blocks. There was an illustration of the blocks with a two inch sashing. There was also a two yard piece of fabric in the project tote that might have been a border fabric.

Months of the year and the legend

Her husband, Brad, thought Rita was making houses. A next step could be to draft a simple house to fit as a filler block for February. After spending a few days looking at the strips, a dark navy fabric might work well to separate the rows. I also think that that framing the legend would be a nice effect. I may shop for the sashing fabric next week. My first step will be to determine the filler block as well as draft the triangles that will turn the ends of the braid into a blunt end. 

I'm linking to: Carol at ToDoTuesday.