I love it when our hobbies can intersect to create something new and exciting that enriches our experience of something we already love... and that's exactly what discovering book blankets has done for me. It's a way I've recently seen a lot of crafters who read (or readers who want to start crafting) track the books they have read by making a blanket as a type of beautiful and functional reading log.
Just like with most creative arts, there are countless ways this can be done! I've seen people put incredible detail into individual crocheted granny squares to capture the image of the book cover or a scene from the story, quilt squares by piecing together fabrics that they feel represent the book, or choose colors for certain genres and knit/crochet rows or granny squares based on that classification system.
I decided to start simple with a traditional granny square and am thinking about choosing a different granny square pattern for each month to slowly expand my skill set over the course of the year. Michael's "Loops & Threads" yarn brand had the right combination of softness, color selection, and price point (after layering sales and rewards points) so I stocked up on a broad range of colors I thought I would need for the vast majority of covers I'd be working with. My excitement was high and I quickly got to crocheting my first few books of the year.
However, I quickly realized that a lot of the books I was reading had very similar color schemes on their covers, and I was worried I'd forget which square I made for which book. I got the idea from someone in the Book Blanket Facebook Group I joined to make a template on canva to help me capture the experience of each read. This group has been such a fun community to engage in and it is so inspiring to see all the really cool things people are doing with their blankets!
When I thought about what I wanted to remember about each book, I decided on a few simple elements: how I got it, if it was a part of a book club, how much I liked it, a favorite quote or moment in the book, and how I read it (kindle, paper, audio). The result was this canva template that is super simple for me to update and very easy for others to customize however they may want to. The most basic adjustments you can make are:
text/font edits
dragging and dropping your book cover and granny square picture into the image placeholders
changing the interior color on the stars to indicate rating
removing the circles behind the reading method images
You can obviously alter any aspect of the template (color, shapes, images, boarders...) however you'd like or add any features you want, but are also welcome to keep whatever parts you find helpful or appealing. If anyone is looking for additional book recommendations, I'd encourage you to pop over to my Stories for Self-Care page which has a curated recommendation list for books I feel support us in important and meaningful ways.
There have been a number of year long projects I've embarked on in the past, but I feel pretty strongly that this is one I will joyfully see to fruition (and probably continue for years to come)! If you decide to try it yourself, please let me know because I'd love to see how it's coming along for you. And if you use the template on social media, I'd appreciate a tag: @readbooks_liftweights (my instagram focusing on personal self-care practices). I'll be sharing my completed squares there in case anyone wants to keep up on what I'm reading and will do my best to also update the gallery here.
Happy reading and crafting!
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