Inside – The tea is spilled on all things Crochet Book Blankets. Read along to discover what a book blanket is, and why I am making one for 2025.
There are two things I have always wanted to do with crochet – create a granny square blanket, and work on a year-long project. So, when I saw other crocheters showing off their 2024 book blankets on the socials, I immediately said, “Yes! That’s the project I’ve been looking for!”
Introducing the Crochet Book Blanket
What is a Book Blanket?
A book blanket is a way to track all the books you read in a given time period. The most common time period is a calendar year. But, any time period works depending on how often you read. After the year, you’ll have this beautiful, tangible blanket to showcase your books. A blanket of stories, if you will.
As much as I love collecting physical books, I don’t own a copy of every book I read. From borrowing physical (and digital) books from the library to listening to audiobooks, about half of the books I enjoy don’t take up physical space in my life. Stitching these stories into a blanket will give them a home they deserve.
Also – I forget how much I read when I don’t have a shelf full of finished books.
For My Book Blanket | I’m recording all the books I’ll read in 2025, and my goal is to read 48 books. If I don’t reach that goal, then I’ll get creative with a solution! Read below to find out how I’m designing my blanket, and where I got this number from.
What Symbolizes the Books?
Crocheters are creative! The options to create book blanket vary from granny squares to color stripes to different stitches. I’ve seen the blankets created with the same granny square pattern, or a different pattern for each book. Also, there are some beautiful, simple blankets that catalog books by genre. Example : Romance books are crocheted in a pink yarn, while thrillers are crocheted in blue yarn, but all rows are crocheted in the same stitch.
For My Book Blanket | I’m making it out of granny squares! This will help me reach my goal to master the granny square in 2025. For January, I used the same crochet pattern for each book, but changed the colors. You can find the Hygge Burst Square (free pattern) Here. Moving forward, I’m undecided if I should keep using the Hygge Burst Square, or change it up to a different pattern.
What Colors Should You Pick?
The popular color choice is based on the book cover. However, don’t lock yourself into ONLY those color schemes. You could base your color palette off of a character or scene in the book. For example, in Tom Lake by Ann Patchett, the main character narrates most of the story on a cherry orchard. So, the granny square could feature cherry red against a grass green.
Simple Ideas to Start Your Own
- Decide how you want to crochet it – squares or stripes.
- Pick what size of blanket you want at the end of 2025.
- Calculate how many books you’ll need to read in 2025.
- Dig through your stash, and crochet it!
Keep reading to find out how I designed my crochet book blanket.
How I Designed My Crochet Book Blanket
FIRST | I chose HOW I’d like to crochet it – squares versus stripes. Granny squares won because there are oodles of patterns out there. Sometimes a girl just needs her options. Plus, I’m less likely to get bored of making this blanket by April, and I’ll end up with another unfinished project. (There is still a granny square blanket circa 2014 resting incomplete in my closet.)
NEXT | I decided how big of a blanket I’d like to snuggle with at the end of 2025. Personally, I love a big squishy blanket, so I’m aiming to make my book blanket 42” wide by 56” long. Both of those numbers are divisible by 7, so I decided each square needs to be 7”.
THIRD | I calculated how many books I must read to achieve a finished blanket in the desired size. Here is when a few math skills come in handy. I figured out how many squares wide and long I’d need. Then, multiplied those two numbers together to find out the total number of squares I’d need for the blanket.
Basic Crochet Math for the Win!
42” blanket width divided by 7” square width = 6 squares
56” blanket length divided by 7” square length = 8 squares
6 squares wide multiplied by 8 squares long = 48 squares total (This is the area of the blanket.)
48 squares = 48 books
LAST | I dug through my yarn stash to see what colors I had on hand in my favorite worsted weight (cat 4). Pro Tip: I advise using the same yarn weight (and fiber) throughout the blanket. Unless you’re one of the throw caution to the wind, then feel free to play around! Ideally, my goal is to use up as much of my yarn stash… but I don’t have all the colors of the rainbow. There will be a few trips to the yarn store for specialty colors.
What I Read in January 2025
Now that you know how I designed my book blanket… let’s get onto the real reason you’re here – The Book Reviews! I’ll keep this section short + sweet for January, since you read through the previous sections.
Fourth Wing by Rebecca Yarros
Rating | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 Stars – Hands down my favorite contemporary fantasy novel/series. Violet Sorrengail dreams of becoming a scribe to learn and record history of her country. Then, she’s thrown into the dragon riders quadrant full of people who want to kill her because of her mom. Violet is mentally and physically though despite her appearance and physical disability. Reading about her endurance and strength gives a boost to my confidence level. The only drawback is that I keep willing my Belgian Malinos (Rex) to morph into Tairn, Violet’s grumpy, old man dragon she bonds with.
Physical or Audio | Audio
Granny Square Pattern | Hygge Burst by Nauti Krall Crochet
Color Inspiration | The colors of Violet Sorrengail’s dragons, Tarin (black morningstar) and Andarna (golden feathertail). You can’t see it in the photo, but both yarn have a bit of sparkle and shimmer to them.
Iron Flame by Rebecca Yarros
Rating | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 5/5 Stars – Loved the continuation of Violet Sorrengail’s story.
Physical or Audio | Physical (next time I re-read it, I’ll listen to it.)
Granny Square Pattern | Hygge Burst by Nauti Krall Crochet
Color Inspiration | The book cover, and what I had in my stash.
Small Things Like These by Claire Keegan
Rating | ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️ 4/5 Stars – Only knocked it down because I wanted more of it to read! It’s a beautiful “in-between” or “just a moment” kind of story. This story takes place around Christmas, but I don’t think I’d read it over Christmas due to it’s sad / contemplative nature. However, this story restored my hope in humanity while inviting me to ask some tough questions about my faith, and how I live it out.
Physical or Audio | Audio (Loved this narrator!)
Granny Square Pattern | Hygge Burst by Nauti Krall Crochet
Color Inspiration | The book cover colors – also, these are some of my favorite colors.
Thank you so much for reading this blog post and support High Desert Yarn! I deeply enjoyed writing this piece about books, and I’m so glad I got to share it with you. Whatever you’re doing next, I hope you find joy and adventure around the corner! Happy Creating, Joanna
