Hello, Wild Things: January 2021

Knitting Book Basket

Monday, January 25, 2021

Every January I question my choice to remain in Illinois. It's just so dang COLD. This year I told myself I would do everything I could to make my winter warmer. I bought slippers, a good coat, and tried to think of warm thoughts.

Keeping in the spirit of warm things and warm thoughts, when it was time to put together our next book basket I knew just what theme I wanted to use: knitting! I grabbed some props from around my house (knitting needles, yarn, small knitted objects) with the intent of giving Ronan some tactile examples of the things we were reading about.

For our activity, I put together a tp roll loom and made him a cute little bracelet! He liked watching the knitted cable come out the end of a tube. Here is a link to a tutorial so you can make your own!

I really loved the books I chose for this basket. They were sweet, silly, and inspirational. And they were especially beautiful. Jon Klassen, the illustrator for "Extra Yarn" is one of my favorite children's illustrators. Links for the books are below the pictures!

Ned the Knitting Pirate by Diana Murray, illustrated by Leslie Lammle

Three Balls of Wool by Henriqueta Cristina, illustrated by Yara Kono

Edmund Unravels written and illustrated by Andrew Kolb

Cat Knit written and illustrated by Jacob Grant

Lester's Dreadful Sweaters written and illustrated by K.G. Campbell

Leave me Alone written and illustrated by Vera Brosgol

Extra Yarn by Mac Barnett, illustrated by Jon Klassen

Made by Raffi by Craig Pomranz, illustrated by Margaret Chamberlain

A Hat for Mrs. Goldman by Michelle Edwards, illustrated by G. Brian Karas

Bertolt by Jacques Goldstyn, translated by Claudia Zoe Bedrick

If you would like to find more book baskets check out the tag here!

Mood Board

My 12 Mood Boards of 2020

Monday, January 18, 2021

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This project wasn't born to be a blog post. Heck, it wasn't even born to be a project. It was born out of a need to organize my OVER 15,000 PINS on Pinterest in a better way. (Maybe I have a problem, but I'm a visual person through and through... so I make myself feel better by telling myself that.) At the start of the year, I created a board for just that year, then added sections divided by months (and projects.) By the time March rolled around I realized that both January's and February's sections had a distinct FEEL to them. As an experiment, I tried to keep the trend going. And lo and behold, here we are, 12 months later, with 12 different mood boards. It's so cool to see a visual representation of how my mind worked (especially THIS specific year.) Some months flow into the next nicely, while a few stand out in high contrast. I love them all, but February and September are my favorite. There was something about those months that just really felt... right.

Source links are below the photos, starting from the top left. I hope you enjoy this little journey through my mind!

January:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

February:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

March:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

April:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

May:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

June:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

July:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

August:

1 - 2 - 3 (mine) - 4 - 5 - 6 (mine)

September:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

October:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

November:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

December:

1 - 2 - 3 - 4 - 5 - 6

YA Gotta Read This Episode One

Saturday, January 16, 2021

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I never wanted to make a podcast. I love listening to them, but I didn't think it was something I'd be interested in. Then I realized that I could use it as an excuse to force my sister to talk to me about books for an hour. I proposed the idea, and she was just as into it as I was. So this little podcast was born.

YA Gotta Read This is a podcast where my sister I discuss Young Adult books and things having to do with YA. It was born out of a need to have time to talk about silly things and serious things and everything in between. Both of us are heavily involved in the YA literature world (she is a high school English teacher and I am the Young Adult Coordinator at our public library) so it is really just a natural fit.

In this first episode, we thought we would introduce ourselves in the best way we know how: by describing our favorite books, the ones we come back to again and again.