my crocheted
mood blanket
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In 2024, I noncommittally committed to crocheting (on average) 1 row of a blanket per day, using yarn colors that represented emotions I experienced that day.
I approached the project with the intention for it to be emotion regulation tool, to help me rebuild trust in my own emotional homeostasis, and to have physically stitched proof that it will always, always pass. When I started it, I was already a near-daily crocheter; and it definitely got me into the practice of checking in with my emotions throughout the day.
My mood blanket is one of my prized possessions, because it’s a tangible and colorful reminder of all the feelings I’ve felt and survived. I’m a pretty emotional person who feels things very deeply; and when I’m neck deep in an emotion sometimes, it can be hard to remember that there is life and balance beyond the moment.
In the pits of despair or the fog of numbness, few things felt as comforting as literally wrapping myself up in the many colors of all the other things I knew I’d felt before and would feel again.
The mood blanket felt like a pre-coded, repetitive, low effort and low [daily] time-commitment project; I just needed to use the color I felt, for roughly 250 stitches (~5-8 minutes of crocheting for me), on average once a day (key operating word: average).
On missing days
and self-grace…
Once, I went two weeks without crocheting but kept track of my moods so I could blast through a mega catch up session when I had time.
I began the mood blanket as a way to be kinder to myself and the emotions I feel, so it was important to me that I minimized any toxic pressure and expectations in the process. Rather than “I can’t believe I’m getting so behind on my blanket,” it felt more encouraging to think “It’s okay to take my time, that’s what the tracker is for, how caught up I am doesn’t change the feelings I’ve felt”.
Tracking in Notion
By a stroke of good luck, I learned about Notion, a free productivity app (#notsponsored), through my tech consulting job, where I was using it to track ongoing action items and manage information in databases (all the corporate jargon stuff).
So, when I knew I would have to track at least 365 “data points” for this project, I gave Notion a shot; and it did not disappoint! I found it so helpful to be able to access and update the tracker on my phone; and the database I set up was pretty simple.
It had 4 columns:
Date
Number day of the year (e.g., X/365)
Color/Emotion
Status (Not yet started, In Progress, Complete)
Once this table was set up, all I had to do every day was create a new row/data point and mark which emotions I felt. Once I finished crocheting the row on the blanket, I would mark the status as “complete.”
Having this easily updatable system gave me flexibility to collect mood data without actually having to physically crochet them that same day, so if I was ever out of town traveling for a little while, I could come back and pick up where I left off.
The other awesome thing about using Notion was that I could filter by each mood I’d created as a separate “tag” within certain date ranges, so I could analyze the incidence rate of each emotion and see if maybe there were any patterns over time.
Blanket Specs
Size 5mm crochet hook
Acrylic yarn, gauge 4
Foundation chain: ~250 st, give or take a few
Used moss/linen crochet stitch (sc1, ch1)
Mood Analysis
(i.e., the Breakdown Breakdown <3)