Knit a Scarf That Records the Weather

[Adapted from Knit the Sky by Lea Redmond]

When was the last time you lay on the grass and watched the clouds drift by? It’s surprisingly easy to forget to look up and appreciate the colorful show that swirls above our heads at every moment. This project asks you to keep an eye on the weather and to track its comings and goings more closely than usual. Each day, you will knit a stripe in colors that match the particular day’s sky, slowly creating your own wearable weather report.

Prepare Your Palette

First, gather balls of laceweight yarn that correspond to the various colors of the daytime sky: bright blue, light blue, white, light gray, and dark gray. Using laceweight yarns means you can use the strands doubled so that you have more color options for illustrating the sky. (Using US 3 needles, you’ll get a gauge of about 7 stitches to an inch.) For example, on a partly cloudy day you might select white and light blue. For a thunderstorm, you might combine light gray and dark gray. And for a pure bright blue sky, you might choose to knit the stripe with two bright blue strands. Make two separate balls of some colors (probably just the blues) so you’ll have the option for the latter. Feel free to add your own flourishes; for example, on rainy days, you could consider knitting clear glass beads into your scarf.

Check the Weather and Start Knitting

1. 1. Begin your scarf by choosing the two-strand color combination that best represents the weather on the first day of your project. Treating these two strands as one, cast on 40 stitches.
2. 2. Then, day after day, observe the sky, select the two colors that express its essence best, and add a stripe to your scarf by working two rows in garter stitch with those yarns.
3. 3. Continue for a year. When you’re done, bind off and weave in the loose ends.

At What Hour?

You might want to observe the sky at the same time each day. Or you might want to wait until each evening and reflect on the essence of that day’s weather as a whole. For example, even if a bright blue sky prevailed for most of the day, you might still choose gray yarns to represent the booming thunderstorm that suddenly swept through town in the afternoon.