If you are an active social media scroller, you most likely have seen the trend where crocheters and a few influencers crochet Granny Squares in colors that match the cover of the book they completed. When this first came around, I, along with other crocheters and book lovers, got excited about this idea. Create a blanket about the books you read for the year, yes!
Around the time this trend was gaining momentum was late 2023, going into 2024. Right around the time,
people start planning their temperature blankets or other year-long projects. Of course, right around that time, I already committed to two Granny Square blanket projects. And I was preparing for a move to Florida from Washington State. Not a good time to start.
However, I did watch what others were making and see who was doing what with their book blankets. A lot of crocheters stuck with the original trend: Traditional Granny Squares with colors that match the book cover. Some of the crocheters got a little creative and chose a different Granny Square pattern, straying away from the traditional pattern.
Looking at this particular trend with Granny Squares and matching colors to book covers, a few issues come to mind:
- Yarn = $$$ & Storage - if you are nitpicky about color matching (like I am), you will start building a collection of yarn of every shade and color imaginable, really fast. Therefore, it creates not just a money issue, but a storage issue.
- Planning - I am a planner when it comes to these types of projects. How many squares do I need to make, and can I add more or less? How big do I need to make the squares? What hook and yarn size do I need to use? These questions and more run through my head continuously when I am planning for these types of projects.
- The trend is overdone - It is 2026, and crocheters are still using the granny square and the color-match book cover idea. Let me say this first and foremost. The trend of a book blanket is not overdone. What is overdone is the granny square and color-matching book cover concept. And I'm not saying that granny squares are bad. There are tons of granny Square patterns out there for anyone to choose from, but it's starting to lose its uniqueness. What is still unique is the memory, upon memory, upon memory, the crafter is making into the blanket. And that’s what I wanna do. I want to create a blanket that reminds me of the books I read in 2026. Just not with the traditional trend.
In 2024, there was a crocheter and book lover whom I followed on TikTok (and for the life of me, I cannot remember her TikTok handle. When I find it, I will let you know) who decided to make a book blanket. Instead of going with the Granny Squares and the color-matching book covers that everyone else was doing, she decided to go a different route, more of a temperature blanket route. Instead of matching the colors to each book, she decided to correlate each genre with a color, but she didn't stop there. She took it a step further and added a rating system. Each star rating (1-5) had its own stitch. For example, if she read a fantasy book and gave it a five-star rating, she would have to crochet the row in double crochet with green yarn. And she kept doing that all year long with all the books that she read. That, to me, is unique. She took the idea of a book blanket and made it her own.
Now, with all of this being said, I am going to make myself a book blanket, and here's how I'm going to do it. First things first, I have so much yarn that I need to use. I am not going to buy any yarn for this project. I’m calling this the Book Purge Blanket. I am going to correlate each genre with a color. And the colors listed are very basic (i.e., blue, red, green, orange, etc.) because I am trying to use up my yarn stash. For example, if I use a blue, I may use a lighter blue at first, and once I use that one up, then I'll move to another blue. It may be more navy blue, but it doesn't matter what shade of blue, as long as it is blue. Oh, before I forget, I do have a color for any book that I have read in the past and decide to re-read. You know, to refresh my memory when a new book in a series comes out. Or, because I need a comfort read.
Second, I am not gonna make a rectangle blanket of any kind, and I'm not gonna do multiple Granny Squares. However, I am going to do a Granny Square. It's just gonna be a really, really big one, and I'm going to use my favorite stitch: the Moss Stitch (a.k.a. the Linen Stitch). The reason being it allows me to be flexible with the number of books I read for the year. Last year I read 125 books and the year before that 84. My goal this year is 50 books. That is half of my goal from last year. So far, I have completed 7 books for 2026. Lastly, I am going to use a 5 mm crochet hook with worsted-weight yarn because that's what I have the most of. Overall, it will be a decent-sized blanket.
I haven't decided if I'm going to do a border or not with this blanket. But I have until December to figure that out.
For each book that I finish reading, it's gonna get two rows in whatever color the genre is. Last year, I DNF somewhere around 3 to 5 books out of the 125 books I read. To some people that counts as reading still, even if you didn't finish it. So, if I do not finish a book it gets one row. Pretty simple, right? Here's where I'm going to break up the months. At the beginning of each month, I am going to crochet three rows in white yarn. I feel like it is a good way to break up the months, to break up the colors, and also to look back and go, ‘Wow! I read that many books that month?’
Now, what if I start a book in one month and finish it in a different month. What month do I put that book in? Very simple, the end date is the month the book goes to. So, if I start a book in January and I finish it in February, then the book goes into the February count. Make sense?
Now y'all are probably wondering, ‘Amanda, how are you going to determine what genre a book is in?’ Well, yes, a book can fall into many genres. I am going to pick the first one that is listed via Goodreads (that’s how I keep track of my reading goal) and Google searches. Sometimes a publishing company is really nice and they put the genre on the back cover of the book. And that's also another way I'll determine what genre a book falls into.
I know this is a lot. Let me simplify it for you:
Rules and Guidelines
- No Buying Yarn! - I have to use what yarn I currently have in my stash. Even if the colors are different shades, I cannot go out and buy more yarn. This is a destashing project.
- Completed books = 2 rows
- Incompleted Books (DNF) = 1 row
- Each month is marked with 3 rows of white at the beginning of each month
- Boarder is TBD
- The end date determines what month a book is placed in (i.e., Start reading book on Jan. 29; Finishes on Feb. 2).
- Goodreads and Google searches will dictate what genre a book falls into. Unless the publishing company has it on the cover of the book.
Here are the colors that will correlate with each genre:
Genres & Colors
- Re-Reads - Yellow
- Auto Biographies/Memoirs - Multi-color
- YA/New Adult - Grey
- Romance - Pink
- Dark Romance - Black
- Fiction - Purple
- Holiday - Sparkle
- Historical Fiction - Brown
- Classics - Blue
- Mystery/Thrillers - Red
- Sci-fi - Green
- Fantasy/Romantasy - Orange
At the end of each month, I will post on my Instagram and Facebook about the books I read and what genre that book falls into, as well as an update on my book blanket. I'll also try to make some videos to share along the way, but it will be more shorts and reels. I will release a full-length video about my experience with the book blanket project at the end of the year, maybe the beginning of January 2027. Hopefully, I finish it by then, but the posts will help me keep myself accountable for this project.
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