Stix Journal

January is in the books, and would you look at me? I have so far kept up with my commitments both to making my temperature blanket and to my desire to write more here. It has been quite satisfying waking up each day to make my little hexagon and sew it to my meteorological memorabilia blanket. I never thought it could be so much fun to see what the temperature range from the previous day had been and then see what colors that meant I would get to use for my hexie.

The ranges so far have translated to a very pretty palette! My favorites are the ones with the pale aqua, which also happens to be my favorite temperature range (10-19 degrees). I adore January days with a bluebird sky of sunshine and clean snow.

The hexies with 2 rounds of white reflect the week of life in the arctic tundra we experienced here. The coldest day in that stretch was a low of -43 and a high of -19.  We all could have done without that! 

I took this photo from my window on that coldest day. The haze in the distance was the very air we breathe freezing solid. That is my professional scientific analysis, corroborated by this photo of the ice on the INSIDE of another window in my house. 

Apparently, all the collective grousing we did about the frigid temperatures was heard by whatever power controls the weather. The end of the month brought us days well up into the 40's. February 1st took us to a high of 53! I can't remember another winter which inspired so much conversation about the weather. It seems to be the favorite topic of everyone who walks in the shop door (which we had propped open to take advantage of the fresh air and sunshine yesterday!). I guess we always want whatever we don't currently have. 

I have made all the centers for my February hexies; 28 in red and one special one in hot pink to demarcate the extra day for leap year! I am hopeful that the temperatures fall back in to our normal February range so that I get to use my aquas, navy and denim more. I'd like that sense of predictability for more than just color preferences....we need snow! That's the other thing people are nervously talking about: a warm dry winter usually translates to a long smoke season in the summer. 

I made my February 1st hexie this morning, and I regret to report that it took a turn to the ugly side with some pea green and teal circling the red. I won't show you a photo of that until I have added more for the month, maybe they will all integrate together nicely. Or perhaps I will have to choose a new shade to represent the 50-59 degree range! See you in March for the next update....here's hoping we can get back to our regularly scheduled winter weather and stop wondering what we did to confuse the weather gods.

-Tracy