My beer is ready for winter

This is what happens when I’ve had a long day at school and decide to unwind by looking for a small knitting project … a beer sweater. The original pattern is here. I followed the pattern exactly except that I added the maple leaf. It’s utterly ridiculously and yet strangely wonderful at the same time!

Baby’s First DNA Model

This toy (online pattern) is meant for a baby but I thought it would also be suitable as a birthday gift for my sister who is doing a PhD in Medical Genetics. It was a big hit. It knits up pretty quickly and I’m planning on making more for a few actual babies who will be arriving in the next few months. Between me, my sister and her roommate we’ve come up with the following ways of “improving” the model. I’m going to try to implement most of them:

• Made the backbones grey so the stuffing isn’t as visible and the look is less harsh
• Make the backbones slightly thinner
• Change the pink to red to conform with standard colours for the base pairs (which I’ve learnt are Blue = C, Yellow = G, Red = T and Green = A)
• If possible make a model in which the base pairs are attached with velcro so the model can be spilt in two
• Something about a pom pom and DNA methylation
• Have the sequence of base pairs code for something (but I’m not sure what)

Let me know if anyone else has any suggestions.

Fetching

This weekend I decided to learn how to knit cables. I didn’t want to just learn the technique though, I had to make something in the process. So I chose a pattern called fetching from the online knitting magazine knitty and headed off to the knitting store on Saturday after my long run. By late Sunday afternoon I was the proud owner of a pair of fingerless gloves! Or fingerless mitts, if you’d prefer. I admit they’re a bit of a novelty but I really do think they will be perfect for the upcoming cool Seattle evenings.