Inspiring Molecular Biology - Merging Science with Art

I am a molecular biologist. I study very tiny things to learn more about diseases like cancer so we can be closer to a cure. In reality, my day to day duties consist mainly of moving small amounts of liquid from one tube to another. I met a lot of other quilters out there who also stemmed from the sciences. I suppose the joy in doing repetitive tasks in research draw the same types of people to quilting.

But this is a post for everyone, not just the ones who get giddy over DNA sequence and electromicroscopy. I think there is a real art and beauty to the science we perform. Many of the patterns in the natural world could lend themselves to some striking and modern quilt designs. I've chose a few common scientific images from molecular biology to illustrate my point.

DNA sequences

This is a group of related DNA sequences. As you may remember from biology class our DNA is an alphabet with only four letters, A, T, C, G. The number and order of these letters is the basis of what makes us who we are. When you line up related sequence the result is an interesting pattern - not quite random - not completely ordered. Wouldn't this make a striking quilt design?

In fact, Beverly St. Clair makes these gorgeous genome quilts. Each letter of the DNA code corresponds to an HST in a different orientation. You can literally read her quilt and decipher the DNA code. I made a genome quilt last year as a graduation gift for my PhD thesis mentor. I even used a DNA print from spoonflower as one of the letters. 

The CrPV IGR IRES RNA sequence.

DNA gel

This is an image of the DNA separated by size on a gel. You have probably seen images like this on some of the forensic science shows. Because each person has a unique DNA sequence, the pattern of the DNA when separated on a gel will be unique. This is one way we can determine paternity. 

https://www.dna-art.co.uk/

These image have false coloring - sadly our DNA is not actually a rainbow of colors in our bodies, but, it creates a beautiful image.  There are companies that will turn your DNA into artwork. I can easily see the quilt possibilities here.

Did you know that viruses love hexis too? A virus is composed of DNA surrounded by a protein shell, or capsid. The capsid is made of of lots of small proteins that interlock to form a hollow shell. 

Viral capsid (Jäälinoja HT et al. PNAS, 2008)

The capsids are a real testament to the process of assembly. Imagine if you collected a bunch of hexagons and pentagons and put them on the ground and they assembled themselves into this...

That is what viruses do. They make hexagons and pentagons and turn them into 3D shells. Luckily we quilters only have to work in two dimensions. 

I haven't seen anyone use a virus structure as the inspiration for a quilt yet but I would love to see it happen.

Congrats for making it to the end of the post. I hope you enjoyed this foray into where science and art merge. Maybe you even have a few ideas stewing. Or maybe you are bored to tears. So feedback anyone? Do you want to see more posts like this?

Either way, Happy Friday!

Philisophical Pfridays - Naan!

Fridays are for thinking about anything but work. So grab a button from my sidebar to play along.

I named my blog Sew Hungry because, not only am I hungry to sew all the time, but I also like to cook bake and EAT! I just love a delicious pun too, don't you??

There will be a bit more baking goodness on the blog in the next few weeks as I prepare Thanksgiving at my house and get ready for an annual event: the Truffle Shuffle. More on that later, but let me just tell you that a good friend and I have been making an insane amount of chocolate truffles every year for the last 4 years.

Who else got up and made naan bread at 5:30 this morning?

Oh, just me? That's OK. I love my lab so much that I am happy to make naan bread early in the morning. My lab is having a curry day and it was my job to bring the flatbread. If you haven't figured it out yet, my lab is a pretty cool place to work (or "work" hehe).

This is the recipe for anyone who is interested. I didn't have any buttermilk or plain yogurt which many of the recipes I found required so I found one that didn't need them. They may not be the most authentic naan around but hey, I'm no professional.

Happy Friday! This weekend is Thanksgiving cleaning and shopping prep days so it remains to be seen how much sewing I can get done.

Philisophical Pfridays - Palette Builder Inspiration

Fridays are for thinking about anything but work. So grab a button from my sidebar to play along.

Guess what! Anne over at Play Crafts blog (aedesigned on flickr) has a really fun palette builder. I used it a while ago to build a color palette for a photo I took in Apaneca El Salvador.

She used my photo as inspiration for her Fabric Friday post last week. Some really great fabrics were pulled based on the colors and mood of my picture so go check it out! I will be buying some (do I dare buy all??) for a EPP project.

Happy Friday Quilteroonies.

Philisophical Pfridays

Fridays are for thinking about anything but work. So grab a button from my sidebar to play along. 

With flickr, Facebook, blogging, pinterest, google+, instagram etc out there, I find it a bit overwhelming to keep up with the internet quilting/sewing/crafting world. To catch up on my blogs I subscribe using google reader and I mercilessly troll flickr and pinterest. I am not using google+ or Facebook for quilting purposes and I have never instagramed anything. I think I am falling behind the curve on that front.

So how do you keep informed and in touch?

Serious crafting going on this weekend at my house. I expect a large dent to be made in my 100 day hustle and some new projects to be showing up on my blog feed in the next week.

Happy Friday to you all!

Philosophical Pfridays - Not a lie

Fridays are for thinking about anything but work. So grab a button from my sidebar to play along. Before I start philosophizing I have a PSA:

This 

Is not a lie

Birthday party tonight for a friend. This is an ironic cake because she is not a rainbows/pink/sprinkles kind of gal (not that there's anything wrong with that). I used my favorite chocolate cake recipe from the Whisk Kid blog. I have also made that cake with the salted caramel and whipped caramel ganache and it is DIVINE. But this time I went for a lighter approach using strawberry whipped cream. There is also some strawberries sliced up in between the 4 layers. YUM!

As a relative newcomer to the quilty/bloggy world I have noticed that my quilt skills/inclinations are seeping into all the other things I do. For example, 

1. I used to just wear solids, now I wear lots of prints and feel very plain Jane if I am wearing solids only.
2. My cake decorating has been influenced a la rainbows etc. 
3. I am better at arithmetic although I still keep my trusty calculator at my cutting table. I use a Ti-89 graphing calculator. Overkill much?

How has your quilting/crafting influenced other aspects of your life? 

Happy weekend folks. I am looking forward to good weather, rest, and many happy hours at my sewing machine this weekend. But first, CAAAAAAKE!!!

Philisophical Pfridays - Thread

Fridays are for thinking about anything but work. So grab a button from my sidebar to play along.

In my last post I showed my now pitiful looking thread collection. Only two spools have survived THREADpocalypse 2012. Looks like I am in the market for some new thread...

Have you used Aurifil thread yet? It seems like EVERYONE is using it but I can't find it at any local shop. Is it really as good as they say? Do you know the best place to get it online? What weights do you use? If you get some in your sewing summit swag can I have it!!!!

Philisophical Pfridays

Hey look up. Any ideas on how to get my custom header to look normal???|

Fridays are for thinking about anything but work. So grab a button from my sidebar to play along.

I've been thinking about friends and family lately because I am going home on Saturday for the first time in over a year. I am pretty terrible at keeping in touch so I will be armed with gifts to make up for me being a bad daughter/sister/friend.

My mom will finally get her Bargello

I'll show you a picture of it on her bed and let you know what she thinks of it when I return next week.

I also made these placemats a while back and never photographed them until today. I will give them to my longtime friends. The center blocks were made using the same improv piecing technique I spoke about in my latest WIP wednesday post. 

 

The blocks were sashed in a cream from Connecting Threads and bound with the same cream. I usually use a contrasting binding but I like the floating effect this gives.

 

Brown Town

 

Purple Pop

 

Blue ocean

 

I quilted with loops. Here is a close up of the quilting and the fishy.

 

Red Hot (I know the names of these are sooo original)

 

Here are the other sides of the placemats. See I only made 4 but both sides are really pretty and unique so you will never get bored. Bow down to the placemats!

 

Think Pink. Love the little birds in this one.

 

Green Bean

 

Sunshine Yellow

 

Elephant Gray

Close up of elephant and quilting detail. I think this might be my favorite side. Or maybe the blue one. Its hard to pick a favorite. I love the style of these so much that I am making more of the center blocks and will be turning it into a quilt.

My pups help to take the pictures

Señor Leuko Pup

Madame Cypress Hound

This post ended up not being so philosophical but I can't be profound all the time. I will be away all weekend and in complete sewing withdraw when I return late Monday night. 

Happy Friday Quilteroonies.

Philisophical Pfridays - A joke

Hey look a button! Grab one if you are feeling profound today.

 

">Friends who craft or quilt are the best. Observe a typical g-chat conversation between Crafternoon Delighter, K and myself.</

K: also. i need to go to joann. in time for the weekend crafting. do you need anything? i think i may go friday morning

me: no thanks i am good   K: ok bueno. i need zippers and fabs and interfacing K: fat mouthed pouch   me: who you calling a fat mouthed pouch!K: hahahahaha

We both just about peed our pants after this. I relayed this conversation to my hubby and he did not think it was funny at all. Either way, K and I will be crafting this weekend and eating greek food. Obviously we will be making some wide mouth pouches from that tutorial writing fiend noodlehead, (aka Anne). So do you have any good crafty humor to share?

Philisophical Pfridays - Scraps-R-Us

I'm taking a few minutes this Friday to think about scraps. I love scraps and scrappy quilts. I think I love scraps more than big pieces of fabric. Probably because I don't have to cut so much (like in my last post) or worry about direction. I can just improve piece.

Right now, I keep all my scraps crammed together in a clear tupperware box. I would like someday to organize them based on color. I don't yet have enough dedicated space for that. I keep everything that is 1" or larger.

 What about you: What scrap is too small for you to keep? How do you organize your scraps?

Also look what awesome movies my hubs bought as a surprise for me! He is the bestest. If you haven't tried a Studio Ghibli film you really should. My fav is Spirited Away.

My Neighbors the Yamadas, The Secret World of Arrietty, Whisper of the Heart

Happy Friday, stitchers!

Philisophical Pfridays: NSFW fabrics?

I found this fabric at Joann's - it is disturbing and possibly be the ugliest fabric ever! Of course I had to take a picture of it and pass it on to you:

I honestly don't know if it is even scrap vomit worthy.

This weekend is more crafting with K from Crafternoon Delight on Sunday. Stay tuned in I will be revealing my finished Scrappysaurus rex along with some other finishes this week. Happy Friday!

Philisophical Pfridays - The quilt that started it all

I would like to take a few minutes to get nostalgic this Friday. This is the quilt that got me into quilting:

My friend K over at Crafternoon Delight made it as a wedding gift for me. Can you believe this was her first quilt? Her grandma quilts and she helped K out with the construction. It has several types of patchwork blocks including photos of me and my hubby and of our pets we had at the time.

 This was our first Halloween together. We went as Walter and Perry from Home Movies. Yeah, we are nerds like that

 It also has a custom monogram embroidery in the center. 

I got married in May 2010. Leading up to my wedding, K kept telling me it would be the best wedding present we get and I couldn't think of what it was at all. It really was our best present (sorry everyone else but quilts trump all) and it got me into quilting. My husband got me my sewing machine for my birthday exactly 2 years ago!

What was your first quilt you received or made?

Happy Friday, peeps and Happy Birthday/sewing anniversary to me.

Philisophical Pfridays

I thought I would take a moment this Friday to talk about quilt layouts. Specifically about changing your layout once you already planned it. 

Original (pretty traditional) layout:

I sewed all the blocks into rows and then started sewing the rows together. After pressing I decided to play around with a few alternative layouts. 

This one is pathway-ish

I really like where this one was headed. Lots of small focal points with radiating zig-zags

In the end I decided to go with the original design, but it was liberating and a lot of fun to play around with the strips. I now have lots of ideas of what to do next with HSTs. I think sometimes I put so much effort into the planning and cutting of the quilt subunits that when it comes time to put it all together I just go ahead without playing around first.

How about you, do you...
plan a layout and stick to it?
start with a layout and then modify throughout?
just improvise?

Also, I'm curious, what would you have done with these blocks stuck with the traditional design or gone wild?

Philisophical Pfridays

Happy Friday everyone. I've been thinking a lot about thrifty ways to back a quilt while still making it "special." I think the back should look as good as the front. So far I have used...

1. Joann's flannel when it is on sale. I have a sneaking suspicion that if I buy some designer flannels I won't want to go back to Joann's. Is this true?

2. A vintage sheet at the Salvation Army which I am using for my Scrapasaurs Rex (genus species names are always italicized) quilt.

3.Sewn together remaining fabric I have leftover from making the front.

4. For my next quilt, I am going to get some sheets from Ross.
5. Any other ideas?

K over at Crafternoon Delight is also playing Philisophical Pfriday today. She also said I have to make a button. So, if you know how to make a button that would save me the trouble of googleing it myself.

Stay crafty peeps.