Calling all crocheters! We’re planning to piece together a community granny square blanket, which will be used for a Friends of the Library fundraiser. If you’d like to donate a few squares, here’s what we’re looking for:

• 5″ x 5″ squares
• worsted weight (size 4) acrylic yarn
• any granny square pattern; any color combination

Donations can be dropped off at the Adult Services desk through Friday, November 15.

Looking for inspiration? You can browse our book collection or the STELLA catalog (Dewey number: 746.434) and our Libby magazine collection. You can also find video tutorials on Creativebug (including Gaga for Granny Squares).

Need yarn? We have a selection of yarn you may use for this project.

The statewide celebration of NJ Makers Day officially starts tomorrow, but we’ve enjoyed celebrating it all week. To help keep your creative energy going, we’ve put up a display of books that are full of activities you might want to try. Stop by the Adult Room to check out the display. We’d love to hear about your creative interests and how we can help fuel them!

On March 21 we hosted a virtual talk by lichenologists Jessica Allen, Phd and James Lendemer, Phd. If you missed it, or want to revisit it, the recording is provided here from our YouTube channel.

Some further resources can be found below. Let me know if you find additional information of interest to lichen enthusiasts!

-Jennifer

Books

Urban Lichens: A Field Guide for Northeastern North America, by Jessica Allen and James Lendemer: this is a great introduction to the world of lichens and the varieties that can be found in our area. Pick it up and you’ll soon be identifying the major types and most familiar species of lichen.

Entangled Life: How Fungi Make Our Worlds, Change Our Minds, and Shape Our Futures by Merlin Sheldrake – while primarily about fungi, this vividly written and entertaining book includes a chapter on lichens. (“The closer we get to lichens, the stranger they seem.”)

Articles & Papers

“Your Garden Isn’t Winding Down: It’s Still Lichen Season”: this New York Times article by Margaret Roach is a nice profile of Jessica and James and a good overview of lichens. If the website shows a paywall, you can read the text here.

“An Annotated Checklist of Lichens Reported from New York City Since 1968“: this is a paper published by Jessica Allen in the Memoirs of the Torrey Botanical Society (2020).

Gardens and Societies

• The New York Botanic Garden – this nearby landmark offers beautiful grounds, innovative exhibitions, and many educational programs. Check out “Hand Lens,” a series of posts exploring the stories behind their lichen collections, and the extensive collection of lichen images.

• Philadelphia Botanical Club – sponsors field trips to wild areas and gardens in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and Delaware and workshops on botanical topics.

• Torrey Botanical Society – the oldest botanical society in the U.S. holds Zoom lectures for plant lovers and botanists.

Citizen Science

iNaturalist is an easy-to-use app that lets you upload a picture of any wild plant, animal–or lichen!. Your contributions can create research quality data for scientists who are working to better understand and protect nature. Every observation becomes part of a growing record of Earth’s biodiversity.

You can also view what others have seen in your area! Wondering if Smokey-eyed Boulder Lichen (Porpidia albocaerulescens) has been spotted in our area? Use the Explore option to find out! (Yes, it has!)

Here’s a great introduction to getting started with iNaturalist.

See our previous Citizen Science post for more projects!

What is plarn? It’s plastic yarn, often made from plastic bags, and it can be used in lots of ways. If you knit or crochet, you can make pot scrubbers, coasters, or reusable tote bags. Some people collect enough plarn to make sleeping mats for the homeless since they’re easy to clean and don’t get soggy. But you can also make decorations like pompoms, garlands, or flowers; and you can even braid plarn to make a jump rope.

At the Library, we receive several newspapers every day, each in their own plastic bags, but we don’t want those bags to end up in a landfill. They come in a variety of colors, and we’ve been saving them for plarn activities. You’re welcome to stop by the Adult Services desk and take some bags to try plarn out for yourself.

Making plarn is pretty simple to do. We’ve put together instructions on how to make it from newspaper bags, but if you have a collection of plastic shopping bags at home, you can find a great tutorial on our online resource Creativebug called Make Plarn for Earth Day.

Our celebration of New Jersey Makers Day (Week) is here! Window Star kits are at the Adult Services desk if you’d like to pick one up. There are a few displayed in the library as well for inspiration.

Another featured activity this week is the Bookish Peeps Diorama Challenge – recreate a scene from a book, but include at least one marshmallow Peep in your design. This is an all-ages challenge, but if you’d like a kit (Peeps and some craft supplies included), register here and pick it up at the Youth Services Desk.

Return your diorama by Saturday, March 26 – we can’t see what you’ll come up with!