Book tracking and crafting are having a very loving and creative relationship online, but when I received an email from Lori about her book tracking quilt, I paid immediate attention. A quilt?
Indeed – a quilt! More than one. Get ready for eye candy.
Lori wrote:
Hi Sarah and team! First, thank you so much for your podcast. You were my gateway to romance and romance podcasts, after a little aimless poking about on my own, and one of the few podcasts still in my regular rotation. Fridays are a stressful day at work for me, and knowing I have a new Smart Bitches podcast every Friday morning (and a new joke to share) helps get me through!
Second, your recent episode with Amanda mentioned book slumps and I hit a hard one starting around 2020 (wonder why
). Lots of rereads, but not a lot of new to me books.
Last year, a quilter I follow started a quilt along, making a block for every book read that year either matching the book cover or using fabric that reminds you of the book. The block changed each month so you could track your reading.
My reading took a huge jump and I had to size down my block size before it got out of control. As it is, I refer to it as my quilted car cover!
I have a very scattered fabric stash, I tend to buy on an “oooh, pretty!” impulse rather than by project, so I didn’t even need to purchase a lot of fabric. I’ve also seen makers track their reading with crocheting a granny square per book, making miniature books of the books read, and embroidering, on clothing or for a wall hanging, using a little symbol to reference the book.
Somehow, combining crafting and reading worked for me–especially since you can listen to audiobooks while you craft. I didn’t do it this year; it was kind of an all consuming project, and my reading is down again, so maybe I’ll try it again next year with the mini books idea! Anyway, thought I’d share in case it helps someone else! I’d be happy to send a photo to show you how it turned out.
Like I was going to say no to photos.
Here she is, freshly back from the long armer*!
The quilter who started the sew along is Ritual Quilt Company (IG link).
I included a halfway shot of my Booksy with a mosaic of the bookcovers the blocks represent. I intended to make a full mosaic of all the covers and put it on the back of the finished quilt, but wow was that tedious! So that’s for future me to do. Maybe.
*NB: a long armer is a person who does the sewing all over a quilt, aka the quilting, using a machine with a long arm that is long/wide enough to accommodate a quilt. Many long arm machines are mounted on a large frame that moves the sewing machine around instead of moving the fabric. Some long armers have computer programs that quilt automatically, and some move the machine around by hand to create patterns.
Ready for pictures? Of course!
Please meet, Lori’s Booksy Quilt!
As Lori explained, each block pattern represents a different month’s reading, with the colors of each block representing a specific book.
WOW is that gorgeous!
This image from Lori’s Instagram shows the quilt in progress. The second slide shows you the books that inspired the quilt squares.
This is the block for Neon Gods by Katee Robert:
I love this idea so much, especially because sewing a block doesn’t take a long time if it’s not super complicated, and the little rush of finishing a block is very motivating.
Lori also has a new pattern to share:
And I also included a shot of another fun book block, Tall Tales foundation paper pieced blocks from Kate Basti.
I did one with a light background before, but decided I needed another with a black background. I left my Instagram handle (do the kids still call it a handle?) at the top of those photos in case you wanted to see more of them.
These were both fun projects! And what’s better than getting to combine books and crafts!
Thank you again for the hours of fun you’ve given me! You’re the best!
Thank you, Lori, for the hours of delight and slight envy you’ve given me, because holy cow:
Foundation paper piecing, or FPP, is a technique where instead of cutting and sewing pieces together, you layer pieces of fabric on a printed paper and follow the pattern on the paper. FPP allows a quilter to make more intricate designs because the pieces can be very small but are stabilized by the paper.
Lori directed me to quilt designer Kate Basti’s FPP tutorial, if you’d like to learn how to do it! Quilt with Kate has an adorable collection of FPP block patterns, too.
Lori adds:
I highly recommend foundation paper piecing, especially for ADHDers. It’s my favorite! You get to skip that precutting and exactness of traditional piecing. Just grab some fabric, cut it to about the right size and shape, and sew on the lines! But you do have to kind of think backwards, which can be challenging.
I just use regular printing paper and a window with a lot of sunlight or a bright lamp to see through it to line up the fabric design. I’ve used a pad of Crayola tracing paper too but my printer doesn’t like it! Oh, and fandominstitches.com and nerdyquilter.com have some fun, free, fpp fandom patterns to download. They look intense with a lot of little pieces so I haven’t tried them yet, but I’ve downloaded a bunch of them!
And if you’d like to see other book tracking crafting, Lori has some suggestions:
jennas_littlelife and laurensbookdiary on Instagram are doing the embroidered sweatshirt book tracking , and vhandstitching had a different type of tracking via embroidery.
t_hooked has a granny square example.
And m.e.g.lewis has an example of a mini book reading tracker, both mini bookshelves and if you want to go big, an entire miniature reading room she builds each year to track her reading!
You can follow Lori on IG @overextended_crafter to see more of her art.
Thank you, Lori!
Do you track your reading through a craft?
