A month in to my temperature blanket project and this is as far as I’ve got.

My daily knitting interlude, with the previous day’s The Archers in the background, has become an anchor point in these days of staying in. We haven’t really had a lockdown here in Hong Kong because the early school closures and cancellations of large gatherings like choir rehearsals flattened our curve quite effectively but it’s meant an increase in my isolation since late January. Our second spike has been largely from people travelling into Hong Kong but the last week has seen several days with no new cases and it looks like some social distancing measures will be lifted soon. Judging from the busyness of the beach and the local restaurants today, Buddha’s Birthday Bank Holiday, some people think our Covid-19 nightmare is already over but I can’t help thinking that we’ll have several recurrences in the next few months. Discovering the new normal is going to be a tricky calculation between freedom and safety, an ever-changing equilibrium.

I’ve been noting assiduously the forecast maximum and minimum temperatures for Discovery Bay at the beginning of each day on my phone and watch, and revising them at noon and at 5pm for the predictive night minimum. I quickly started worrying, however, that that was just a forecast and not firm data. Like other forecasts I could mention, it predicts a trend, but I need more accurate data to discover whether the night is over or under 20C and therefore  a yellow or a pink. John reassures that no-one will know, but I know, and that is bad enough. The problem is that the data for the night before often vanish by the morning on the HK Observatory, the Met Office and Apple Weather apps. I’m now using Accuweather instead but this continues to be a problem so I’ve decided to make a judgement call on the prediction for the night at 7pm and then see whether or not I need aircon on in the bedroom.

The yarn ends were proving challenging but I am making sure that I see to weaving them all in once a week so that they don’t become overwhelming. I made a mental breakthrough this week when I realised that if a colour, say pink, was on the wrong side of the blanket from the one I was supposed to be working next, on the purl side when it should be on the knit side, all I had to do was just purl instead of knit. Possibly the stitches in that row might lean the wrong way but perhaps that will come out in the blocking and, if it doesn’t, well, that’s just organic art, isn’t it?

I’m marking the end of each week with navy yarn so that I can keep track. As I’m knitting new colours in, it’s likely that the sides will become a little raised and uneven so I’m thinking of some sort of grown-on border, maybe one that reflects the months or the seasons or something. I haven’t worked this part out yet but it adds to the excitement of not knowing exactly how the blanket will look on March 31st 2021.

You’ll see that, apart from a slightly cooler phase at the beginning of the month, and a low blip on the night of Easter Sunday,  the temperature has been rising steadily towards the warmer colours. I had hoped that there would be some blues and greens in there to reflect a planned stay at home in Beckenham, but that was not to be. Being forced to stay at home here – there are virtually no flights from Hong Kong at the moment even if we didn’t have to face 14 days’ quarantine in most destinations in Asia – means that I’m ordering more of this orange yarn, the one that’s a bit splitty and looks too bright to crochet in a block for the Hong Kong Crocheted Almanac Thing sister project, but it’s fine for this blanket.

As for the crochet: the nascent project was for a max/minimum crochet granny square blanket but, on the treadmill one day when the gym was still open, I decided to incorporate some of the flowers we see growing all around leafy, green Lantau. I have tried to crochet flowers before but I’m not very dexterous yet and it takes me a while to psych myself up to picking up the yarn and the hook. The Fear looms large. When I do, though, I really enjoy it, and it’s a big distraction from social media, the source of much misery at the moment.

The problem is, though, that all of the books on flower crochet seem to be of temperate English garden flowers. I have, however, found some tropical species on YouTube. Apurva Creation and Kalopasak are two sources in Marathi, and it’s such a joy to rediscover what is, after all, my first language. Yarn is also an issue as everyone on their global lockdown takes to yarning. So many of my usual sources are completely sold out of everything, which is why I’m still waiting for the orange yarn I need to complete the January, February and March squares. A very kind friend – thank you Margaret – is sending me some yellow embroidery silk for the centre of the hibiscus I’ve made, so I’m just waiting for the post to arrive and be quarantined for three more days before opening of course. I hope to show you more next month, but in the meantime, here is a yellow trumpet flower I crocheted last night, with the help of a YouTube video from Crochet For You.