Book Tracking Ideas Char Has Tried

Mid-December is when you start seeing things about the new year and planning. January is the month of resolutions; for me, it’s the month of goals. I personally don’t like the word resolutions. Goals feel more attainable and can be of any size. Resolutions feel like they need to be big, year-long things. Why am I talking about this? Well, every year I set a reading goal. I want to read as many books as I can, but I also like to do something visual to see how much I’ve read. ​

One option is a reading journal. In the past, I have kept one, but it was a premade one that I got in a subscription box. I loved it, and it fit in my purse so I could easily pull it out and write about the book I had just read. I have also tried to make my own through a bullet journal, which helped me make it more creative. I could also put the book cover in it. If you search it on YouTube, you’ll get thousands of ideas. I found that making my own spreads made them less enjoyable and also made my purse feel bulky, so I wanted to try something else.

I then decided to try the viral book cover ornament, but I didn’t want to have to do the covers. I wanted something more unique. I decided to do origami stars. Not only are plastic ball ornaments pretty cheap, but origami star paper is, too. The other plus is that you can get a ton of the paper in one go. At first, I would make a star every time I finished a book, but eventually it turned into a weekly thing. I do love looking at the ornament, but I don’t think I have ever actually put it on my tree, so I needed something else to try.

After the ornament, I decided to try again with the book journal, but unfortunately, it became too much again, and I couldn’t keep up. I even tried to premake spreads, so all I had to do was write in the titles and ratings. I also felt it was a waste of paper to print only one cover picture at a time. So the following year, I needed something new to try.

Temperature blankets became popular, and I always wanted to learn to crochet, so I decided to try my hand at making one. However, I didn’t want to do a temperature blanket; I tried to track my books. At the time, I wasn’t reading many books, so I thought I would pick a color for each genre I wanted to try, and then, between each color, I would put a black stripe. I also set a goal to read outside my typical genres. I kept track of good reads and what I had read, but halfway through the year, I realized it was tough to know what I had done and hadn’t done. So, I bought a small notebook and wrote down the colors I had to do after I finished the book. This idea really worked for me, and while I never actually finished this blanket, I am still really proud of it. It also created a love of crochet. The biggest problem with the blanket was that I had to sew in all the ends, and believe me, I had so many.

Last year, I took everything I learned and decided to make a star rating blanket. Same style as before, but I left out the black. Only to use it to separate the months. I decided not to sew in the ends but make little braids. I love it. I did six colors—0/dnf, 1 star, 2 star, 3 star, 4 star, and 5 star. I still use the little notebook and write down the colors for every book I read, and leave room to check them off. Unfortunately, I am months behind this year, but I also decided to get more creative with crochet and have tried other things in the background. I do plan to get it done; it might just take me longer than a year.

This year I wanted to do something different than a blanket. I have seen book-tracking snakes, worms, scarves, and blankets, and none of them sounded fun. I actually was going to go to the bookworm stuffy, but I’m not a big stuffy crocheter. It wasn’t until a few months ago that I realized I really like making sweaters. So this year I am making a sweater. I am doing a top-down sweater, and if you search that on YouTube, you’ll see what I mean. I also decided to try using cotton yarn instead of acrylic. I started to venture into different kinds of yarns and colorways. I have learned so much about making garments, and I think it will be fun. I plan to do the six-color rating system again. I also plan to stripe each color again. The biggest thing is I wanted to do a smaller project this year. Blankets are great and all, but it took me so long to do one row that I struggled to keep up. I think doing the sweater will help me keep up better. I want to split the rows into two halves, with one half for one book and the other for another. I read a lot so that I won’t have a super-long sweater. I also plan to do monthly updates to hold myself accountable.

Overall, how you track your reading is up to you, and I hope you got some fun ideas from this post. Please share your ideas or come to crafty/ fiber Saturdays, and we can work on the projects together, no matter what you decide to do. I also hope that this post was interesting to someone other than myself. Don’t be afraid to try something new! I also just had a thought of another way to keep track. Maybe you take a small notebook, and after you finish a book, you write down the title and change the color for each one. Just take up one page, title after title. Happy reading for the 2026 season!