Anyone who knits, crochets or crafts in general I guess, will have heard of this. The basic premise is that you work a colour of a project every day for a year based on that days temperature.

Lots of people do blankets, so many rows per day, others do scarves and I’ve recently seen beautiful embroidered trees with one leaf per day.

Having made a scarf, then a blanket I decided to venture further to socks!. One pair a month for 12 months. I then decided to use my year if birth.

Sounds simple on the face of it, go online, search for the Data(accuweather us great) and off you go. But no not so simple. Just to make me feel old the Data online didn’t go back that far!

What to do.

I decided to email the met office! I was very lucky to have my email land in the inbox of a lady called Joan. She responded that she also couldn’t access electronic data but that she had been down to the archive strongholds and taken photos of all data available for my home town for my chosen year, which she not only sent me but explained what each column was for! What a treasure.

So..now I had my data. I then allocated a colour to a set of temperatures.

• 20-25 – pale blue

• 26-30 – blue

• 31-35 – aqua

• 36-40 – green

• 41-45 – light green

• 46-50 – dark purple

• 51-55 – purple

• 56-60 – pink

• 61-65 – dark pink

• 66-70 – red

• 71-75 – orange

• 76-80 and above – yellow

Next job was to work out how many rounds per day, yarn choice, and whether to do identical or fraternal socks. I decided on fraternal, one high temps, one low. I added cuffs, heels and toes in the average high and low respectively.

So my calculations began. Lots of paperwork, lots of maths before I could even start.

This is what I came up with!

DK yarn – amounts determined by temperature!

3.75 mm dpns or needles of your choice

Cast on 54 sts

CUFF

• k1, p1 rib fir 8 rounds using average temperature (low or high depending where you want to start)

LEG

Knit 3 rounds per day for 10 days

HEEL

work as below, or preferred heel, in high or low temp

Working back and forth on the 26 sts (leave other sts on hold),

row 1. (Slip1, knit1) rep to end

row 2. Slip 1, purl to end

repeat rows 1 & 2 another 4 times making 10 rows in total

next. Slip 1, knit 13, k2tog, turn

next. Slip 1, purl 3, p2tog, p1 turn

**next. Slip1, knit to 1 stitch before the gap that was made, k2tog, k1 turn

next. Slip 1, purl to 1 stitch before the gap, p2tog, p1, turn**

repeat the last 2 rows (from **-**) until all sts have been used. Place a stitch marker in the centre of these sts as this is your new beginning of round.

Now, joining in the next days colour at the beginning of the round, knit to the end of the heel then pick up and knit 11 sts down one side of the heel, knit across the held sts, pick up and knit 11 sts along the other side of the heel to the beginning again.

Assuming you are working on dpns you should have the heel sts plus 11 picked up sts on the first needle, needle 1, 28 sts on needle 2, and the 11 picked up sts plus remaining heel sts on needle 3

DECREASING

round 1. Knit to 3 sts before end of needle 1, k2tog, k1, knit across needle 2, needle 3 k1, k2tog, knit to end of round

round 2. Knit

repeat rounds one and 2 until you have 54 sts again not forgetting to change daily colour where needed.

continue straight working the stripes as required until you come to the end of the month.

for February work 3 rounds in high or low temperature colour before starting on the toe. For months with 30 days work 1 round of toe colour before starting on the toe. For all other months begin working on the toe

TOE

round 1. Needle 1, knit to 3 sts before end of needle, k2tog k1. Needle 2, k1, k2tog, knit to 3 sts before end of needle, k2tog, k1. Needle 3, k1, k2tog, k to end of round

round 2. Knit

rep rounds 1 & 2 to 24 sts the repeat rounds 1 only to 16 sts

kitchener sts together