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Giveaway….Knitting Socks With Handpainted Yarn

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yarnTotally cool book! Knitting Socks with Handpainted Yarn by Carol J Sulcoski goes into detail about the differences between hand dyed vs machine dyed yarns, different fibers, and blends. Oooooh, the blends!

And the patterns!  Gorgeous patterns, not just for handpaints, but for any yarns.

Tips for avoiding splotching and pooling. Ideas for choosing patterns that complement the yarns and guidelines for understanding how the colors in a sock work together! – Funny story….. I’m soooooo not the person who cares if my socks pool, or splotch or even match. It just doesn’t matter to me, but this last pair of socks I knitted are I.D.E.N.T.I.C.A.L!!  Of course I’m taking credit for this, but between you and me, I knit until I was happy with how long the cuff was (toe up patterns and I are bff!), and then just started with the toe on the next one. No amount of planning could replicate this freak of nature, but they match. And I don’t care! Who’da thunk??

Anyway, tell me about your sock horror stories, I’ll send an email to everyone who comments and as usual, the first one to respond back to me with their mailing address gets this awesome book!

And if you don’t win the book, you can buy it at Interweave Press, here: http://www.interweavestore.com/store/p/2274-Knitting-Socks-with-Handpainted-Yarn.aspx

They even have a few hurt copies at a discount, but hurry!

Read These Next

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Moss and Lichen Unit Study

I guess moss and lichen are more things that you see in the spring than in the summer, but there are some deep shady parts of our yard that stay mossy all year, and summer is a fine time to look for plants that like to live in shady, wet areas.

Raising Up Wild Things has a really pretty set of printables to use for a moss and lichen unit study.

And just in case you’re like me and don’t really know the difference, moss is a plant that grows in damp wooded areas, while lichen is a combination of fungus and algae that live together. Lichen can live in different environments but are often found in places where you would find moss, too.

The printable includes drawings of some common moss such as sphagnum moss and wood moss, as well as common lichen shapes (crusty, leafy and shrubby). There are good sized images you can print out and laminate to use to compare to specimens you find when you are exploring nature.

There’s also a forest floor coloring page and a printable journaling page where kids can write or draw their observations and there are a few questions older kids can answer.

You can use these when you go on a walk in the woods (or the back yard) to talk about what you are seeing, or combine them with other resources to talk about things that live in the forest. Check them out at Raising Up Wild Things.

This PDF from the Morton Arboretum has a bunch of pictures of different kinds of moss and where to find them, which could also be helpful in your studies. Learn more about lichen, including what they are and what they are not, in this article from the US Forest Service.

[Photo: Raising Up Wild Things]