Degrees & stitches: An Alaska woman’s crochet climate diary

PORT ALSWORTH, Alaska (KTUU) — Port Alsworth resident Salina Alsworth had no idea that a crochet trend online would inspire her most ambitious crochet project yet.

“I saw people talking about the end of their temperature blankets, and I thought, ‘what is this?’” Salina recalls. “But when I saw the finished blankets, I was like, ‘oh my gosh, I want to do that.’”

Turning weather into art

A temperature blanket is simple in concept but beautiful in execution. You assign a color to a temperature range —typically each color represents a 10-degree range. Then you crochet, or knit a row, square or any other shape in that color. Over a year, those daily stitches become a handmade record of your climate.

“Each color is a 10-degree range,” Salina explains. “So the peach color is the 30s—between 30 and 39 degrees. The mustard is the 20s, and so on.”

The creator decides the pattern, colors, and design. For Salina, it meant committing to weekly updates on social media to stay on schedule. It also meant her blanket would tell a story unique to Port Alsworth—a remote Alaska village where winter is unforgiving and summer is brief.

The Story Her Blanket Tells

What makes Salina’s blanket remarkable is what it reveals about 2025. Growing up in Port Alsworth, she remembers temperatures plummeting to 40 below zero. But last year was different.

“It was a very odd warm winter and year for us,” Salina says.

According to her records, the coldest it got in January 2025 was negative 14 degrees—relatively mild for Alaska. Those deep, dark cold colors barely appear on her blanket until December arrives. Instead, warmer tones dominate the fabric.

For someone who has lived her entire life in Port Alsworth, the blanket is more than a craft project. It’s a visual diary of her home’s climate, a tangible record of how 2025 felt in her remote village.

Already Planning 2026

Despite the year-long commitment, Salina is already working on 2026. She’s purchased a pattern from Etsy and plans to expand her project.

“It’s definitely going to be a lot bigger than my 2025 blanket,” she said with enthusiasm.

For those inspired to try their own temperature blanket, Salina has encouraging words: “It’s not too late, no matter how late into the year you start. There are so many fun patterns and different ways to do it.”

Whether you’re documenting a year in your hometown or tracking the first year of someone’s life, the temperature blanket proves that data and creativity can blend beautifully—one stitch at a time.

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