“Felt so Good” Martha Stewart Living, 9/2009 Magazine

I was so excited when I opened my latest issue of Martha Stewart Living and as I thumbed through the pages I came across a wonderful 6 page spread on new and fabulous felting ideas. The September issue is on sale at your newsstand now, so don’t miss out on this issue. Introduction to the article: Wool may be soft to the touch, but look at it under a microscope and you will see a tangle of rough fibers and you’ll see a tangle of a rough fiber covered in tiny overlapping scales. A little coaxing makes the scales catch on one another and locked together with a craft called needle felting, you can take advantage of that quality decorating wool pillows, scarves, blankets, and other items with wool accents and no sewing or gluing is necessary. Just take a simple tool called a felting needle and moved it up and down through two layers of wool. Then watch as they fuse. Start with any woven wool as your base fabric and for embellishments use the fiber and in another of its forms yarn, felt cutouts or loose wool known as roving. The result is a stylish one-of-a-kind accessory to cozy up to this fall.

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Human brains are pretty amazing, allowing us to think, feel, create, communicate, move and more. But humans aren’t the only animals with cool brains, as Crab Museum explains in the book The No-Brainer Brain Explainer (illustrated by Bruno Valasse).

This book, aimed at kids in grades 1-4, is colorful and silly but also educational about how brains actually work, with billions of neurons sending electrical and chemical signals around the body.

“Everything we think, feel and experience comes from an electrical relay race, with neurons passing chemical batons to each other,” the book says. “The constant chatter of billions of brain cells creates your entire world.”

The book compares the brains of mammals to those of crabs (the book is “written” by a crab after all) and notes that crabs have fewer neurons and of course are much smaller, but they have separate parts of their brains that control their eyes and their legs. Crabs are also capable of remembering things, using tools and solving puzzles.

Some animals’ brains allow them to know more about their world in different ways from humans, such as spiders being sensitive to vibrations in their webs and catfish having an amazing sense of taste, with taste sensors all over their bodies.

It notes that 95 percent of brain activity goes toward things we do unconsciously, like breathing, walking and catching a ball flying toward us. It also talks about dreams, memory, how our emotions try to predict the future, where brains came from and fun facts about brains. For example, did you know a sperm whale is believed to have the biggest brain of any creature that’s even lived? Their brains weigh 18 pounds, compared to just 2.5 pounds for humans.

Information on what creatures have the smallest brains, the toughest brains, the most brains and those who actually eat their own brains will delight kids (and maybe gross them out a little bit). They’ll also enjoy learning about the mycelium network of fungi, which is like a brain without a body, and slime molds, which are like a brain without a brain.

It ends talking about why human brains are so special because we’ve found ways to work together, communicate and build communities on a scale bigger than any other animal.

Kids and adults alike will enjoy this colorful, silly and informational book about brains!

About the book: 64 pages, hardcover. Published 2026 by Wide Eyed Editions. Suggested retail price $19.99.

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