The Idea Was Simple

It started with a single ball of yarn and a need to do something — anything — with my hands.

A few weeks after the funeral, I came across a crochet temperature blanket on Pinterest. The concept: one row per day, each row a different color based on the weather.

But I didn’t want to record the temperature.
I wanted to record the grief.

So I picked seven colors.
Each one mapped to how I felt — from complete despair to small, surprising moments of peace. I assigned a color to each emotion and started stitching, one row per day.

This was never about making something beautiful.
It was about making something bearable.

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🧵 My Yarn Palette for Grief

I didn’t choose the colors for aesthetics. I chose them for how they felt in my hands.

Emotion	Yarn Color	Why
Numb	Fog Gray	The blank static of silence
Sad	Dusty Blue	The low ache that never left
Angry	Deep Maroon	The sudden heat that caught me off guard
Empty	Pale Beige	For days that passed without feeling real
Anxious	Mustard Yellow	The buzzing, unsettled hum
Calm	Sage Green	A quiet breath between waves
Hopeful	Blush Pink	Fleeting, rare, but worth documenting

Each night before bed, I’d sit on the floor and ask myself,
“What color was today?”
Then I’d crochet a single row — just one.

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🕯 The First Few Weeks Hurt

In the beginning, the rows were nearly all gray and blue.
The blanket grew slowly, with no rhythm — just repetition.

Some nights I couldn’t bring myself to pick up the hook. So I’d leave a stitch marker as a placeholder. I told myself missing a day wasn’t failing. Even that was part of the story.

Over time, something shifted. Not dramatically. Not quickly. But enough that I noticed a day with sage green… then another with pink.

Small rows.
Small signs.
Tiny survival.

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🧶 Why Crochet Helped When Words Didn’t

Journaling felt like too much.
Talking felt impossible.
Even crying felt performative.

But crocheting asked nothing of me. It just waited.

I didn’t have to explain anything. The yarn didn’t need answers.
It simply let me show up, in whatever state I was in, and move forward one stitch at a time.

The rhythm became a ritual.
The ritual became a record.
The record became something I could hold.

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📆 A Year of Grief in 365 Rows

As the months passed, the blanket became heavy — in weight and in meaning.
Every stripe marked a moment I lived through.

You could almost read the year by looking at it:

• Long stretches of gray during winter

• A jagged maroon stripe in early spring

• A few soft pinks scattered like freckles in summer

• More green than I expected by fall

By the time I reached Day 365, I didn’t feel “healed.”
But I felt seen.
By myself.
By my stitches.
By the thing I’d built out of all the days I thought I couldn’t survive.

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🎁 What I Learned from This Year-Long Crochet Journal

• Grief is not linear — and neither is color. Some weeks are a chaotic mix. That’s okay.

• You don’t need to write to document. A row can speak for a day.

• Progress is sometimes invisible until you look back.

• You can love something that came out of pain. Even if you never want to repeat it.

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🧵 Want to Try This?

You don’t have to be grieving to crochet a journal blanket.

You could do this for:

• A pregnancy

• A year of sobriety

• Mental health recovery

• Healing from burnout

• Or just a year you want to remember

Pick your colors. Define your emotions.
Show up for yourself every day.
Stitch it — even if it’s messy.

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🧡 Final Thought

Grief doesn’t leave.
But it does move.
And sometimes, if we’re lucky, we can move with it — row by row.