Meet Year in Yarn: My Free Crochet Temperature Blanket Calculator
This post includes affiliate links.
This post includes a free interactive tool I built for you — no affiliate links, no sign-up, just a gift from me to you.
Hi friends! If you’ve been anywhere near the crochet corner of the internet lately, you already know what I’m about to say: it’s temperature blanket season again. 🧶 I’ve talked about temperature blanket patterns and ideas with you before, and I’ve even rounded up 20 temperature blanket projects you can actually finish. But there was always one thing missing from all of it — an easy way to actually plan the darn thing before you pick up your hook.
So I built one myself.
Meet Year in Yarn, my free crochet temperature blanket calculator, built right into this page. It helps you pick your colors, figure out exactly how much yarn to buy, decide how you want to crochet it (rows, squares, or granny squares), and it even hands you a printable report to follow along with all year. Let’s get your project planned out so THIS is the year you actually finish yours!
👇 Try it out right here! 👇
Go ahead, play around with it a little before you keep reading — change the temperature range, click through the color palettes, add a few of your own stash colors. I’ll wait. 😄 Once you’ve got a feel for it, here’s how to get the most out of it.
What Is a Temperature Blanket, Again?
Quick refresher in case you’re new here: a temperature blanket is a year-long project where you crochet one row, one square, or one motif per day, and the color you use depends on that day’s temperature. By the end of the year, you have a cozy, colorful keepsake that’s basically a diary of the weather (and honestly, of your whole year). If you want the full breakdown, I go deeper into it in this post.
The tricky part has always been the planning stage — picking colors that actually look good together, figuring out your temperature ranges, and not realizing halfway through July that you’re about to run out of your darkest color. That’s exactly what Year in Yarn is for.
How to Use the Year in Yarn Calculator (Step by Step)
Step 1: Name Your Project & Set Your Temperature Range
Start by giving your project a name (this shows up on your report later, which is a nice little touch if you’re making it as a gift). Then set your low and high temperatures — this is the full range your blanket will cover, so think about your coldest winter day and your hottest summer day.
Not sure what your actual temperatures will be because you’re planning ahead for next year? No problem — that’s exactly what the Estimated option under Temperature Data is for.
Step 2: Choose Your Color Palette (or Use Your Own Stash!)
This is my favorite part. You’ve got a few ways to build your palette:
- Preset – pick from a handful of ready-made color palettes
- Gradient – choose 2–4 anchor colors and let the tool blend the rest for you
- Photo – upload a photo (a sunset, your garden, anything!) and it’ll pull a palette straight from the image
- My Stash – and this is the one I really want you to try: add the yarn colors you already own into your stash, and the calculator builds your entire palette from those colors automatically. No more falling in love with a palette only to realize you’d need to buy ten new skeins.
📷 Image idea: A flat-lay photo of a yarn stash (skeins fanned out) next to a screenshot of the “My Stash” feature in the tool, to visually connect the two.
Step 3: Decide How You’ll Crochet It — Rows, Diagonal Rows, Squares, or Granny Squares
Under Blanket Layout, you’ll choose how your temperature blanket actually gets built:
- Rows – the classic, simplest option. One stripe per day, stacked top to bottom.
- Diagonal Rows (C2C) – the same one-row-per-day idea, but worked corner-to-corner for a bold diagonal look.
- Squares – one square per day, arranged into a grid. You can choose how many squares go in each row and whether they zigzag or go straight across.
- Granny Squares – one granny square per week instead of per day, with each of the 7 rounds representing a day. If you love granny squares as much as I do, this is such a fun twist on the traditional temperature blanket.
A few real examples for inspiration:
- Rows/stripes: Muted Crochet Temperature Blanket by Burgundy and Blush — moss stitch, one horizontal row per day, gorgeous muted (non-rainbow!) palette.
- Grid of squares: Quilted Crochet Temperature Blanket by While They Dream — one square per day, joined into a clean quilt-like grid.
- Granny squares: Granny Square Temperature Blanket by Yarn Obsessions by Debbie — one granny square per week, arranged in a simple grid (plus a couple of extra squares to square things up), which lines up really well with how Year in Yarn’s Granny Squares layout actually works.
A Note on Diagonal Rows (C2C)
If you love corner-to-corner crochet, Year in Yarn now has a Diagonal Rows (C2C) option too — one diagonal row per day instead of a straight one, just like June’s C2C Temperature Blanket over at It’s All in a Nutshell. Just know that C2C rows constantly increase or decrease in stitch count, so the Yarn Needed Calculator can’t give an accurate per-color yardage estimate for this layout, and it turns itself off automatically when you pick it. The “when to switch colors” day-by-day guide is still 100% accurate, since that part isn’t based on stitch counts at all.
If you pick Squares or Granny Squares, you’ll also see an option for what happens with “leftover” squares that don’t divide evenly into a neat rectangle — you can either trim them off cleanly, or turn them into a border round instead. I added that after making my own lopsided temperature blanket once and learning that lesson the hard way. 😅
Step 4: Preview Your Whole Year Before You Even Pick Up a Hook
The Coverage Preview is where the magic happens. Switch between Daily, Weekly, Monthly, and Totals to see exactly how your colors will play out across the whole year — before you’ve made a single stitch. This is huge for catching two colors that look too similar next to each other, or realizing your palette is way too heavy on one end of the temperature scale.
Step 5: Figure Out Exactly How Much Yarn to Buy
This is the step I wish I’d had for my first temperature blanket. Turn on the Yarn Needed Calculator, tell it about your gauge swatch (how many stitches, how many rows, how much yarn it took), and your project size, and it’ll break down exactly how many yards and skeins you need for each individual color — plus a total for the whole project. No more guessing, no more buying five skeins of a color you only needed one of.
Step 6: Download Your Personal Pattern Report
Once everything’s set up, hit “View Full Report” for a clean, printable page that shows your full color palette, your yardage per color, a month-by-month look at your year, and — my favorite part — a “when to switch colors” guide that tells you exactly which day to change colors on, all the way through day 365. Print it, stick it in a project binder, and check it off as you go.
(Heads up: if you pick Granny Squares, your report shows a “when to crochet each round” guide instead — broken down by week and round, since a new square starts every 7 days. It’ll also remind you how to join your finished squares together: by sewing, a crochet seam, or join-as-you-go.)
Why I Built This (and Why It’ll Save Your Sanity)
I’ll be honest with you: the number one reason crocheters give up on temperature blankets isn’t the crocheting part — it’s the planning part. Not knowing how much yarn to buy, second-guessing your colors halfway through, losing track of which day you’re even on. I wanted to take all of that off your plate so the only thing left to do is the fun part: crocheting.
Tips for Choosing the Perfect Temperature Blanket Colors
Pick a Palette That Actually Matches Your Style
Just because most temperature blankets you see online use rainbow colors doesn’t mean yours has to! Think about where the blanket will live. A moody, muted palette can look just as stunning as a bright rainbow one, and it might match your home (or your personality) a lot better.
Don’t Be Afraid to Raid Your Stash
This is exactly why I added the My Stash feature. If you’ve got leftover skeins from other projects, see if you can build all or part of your temperature blanket palette around what you already have. It’s a great way to use up your stash AND save some money.
Watch Out for Colors That Are Too Similar
The calculator will actually flag this for you, but it’s worth saying anyway: if two neighboring colors in your palette are too close in shade, your finished blanket can look muddy in those spots instead of showing a clear gradient. When in doubt, hold your yarn up in different lighting before committing.
Rows vs. Diagonal vs. Squares vs. Granny Squares: Which Layout Should You Choose?
Classic Rows (or Stripes)
The easiest to plan and the fastest to work up, since there’s no assembly at the end — just keep adding rows. Great if this is your first temperature blanket.
Diagonal Rows (C2C)
Same one-row-per-day idea, but worked corner-to-corner for a bold diagonal look. A fun choice if you already love C2C — just remember the Yarn Needed Calculator can’t be used for accurate per-color amounts here, since the row width keeps changing.
Individual Squares
A great in-between option if you like the idea of portable, one-sitting projects. Each square is its own little finished piece, and you join them at the end (or as you go).
Weekly Granny Squares
My personal favorite for anyone who’s a little intimidated by 365 individual pieces. One square a week feels a lot more manageable, and watching the colors shift round by round inside a single square is honestly beautiful. Your report even gives you a week-by-week, round-by-round guide plus a reminder on how to join your finished squares together (sewing, a crochet seam, or join-as-you-go).
Ready to Start Your Own Temperature Blanket?
Scroll back up, play with the calculator, and get your palette, layout, and yarn amounts figured out before you buy a single skein. I’d love to see what you come up with — tag me on Instagram or Pinterest if you use Year in Yarn to plan your own temperature blanket, I truly can’t wait to see your colors!
Happy crocheting! 🧶
— Nicole
