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IT CAUGHT MY EYE…

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So, I’m sitting at the Crochet Club Meeting, minding my own business the other night, knowing I had to leave early to get to the airport to pick up my MIL who was flying in from India via Australia, when I spied something dangling from the end of a shelf full of sock yarn.  Just hanging there.  Lots of interesting colors.  Had never seen it before.  Gotta get up and go see what this is.  A SOCK SCARF!  It’s so cute!  I’m showing it to the assembled crew, raving about this.

sock scarf 0809

Joan, a Crochet Club member who works at this shop stopped me with “I made that at least three years ago.  It’s been hanging there since then.”  No Way!  Not one of the crocheters had seen this scarf before.  It’s knit, but could easily be crocheted.  Joan had made it using up all her sock yarn, so it’s a rainbow of solid, heathered, and self patterning sock yarns.

sock scarf 2

The heels are so cute.  They stick out at all angles, tiny peaks in the narrow stream of this thin scarf.  Hope you can see them on these pictures which Ronnie was kind enough to take for me.  Isn’t she a good photographer?

The pattern is something like ‘Head Over Heels’ but I could find no reference to it online.  Perhaps some of the knitters out there can help us out so we can credit the creative designer who came up with this simple but practical, whimsical pattern.

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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]