Jenelle, don't look!

This is the Caron Spa baby blanket I promised, ready to hit the mail for baby Emilie. No I could not resist the foram appliqué.

(Just one more fetus project to go!)

Foraminifera Pinata

I volunteered to be the games coordinator for this year's Earth and Planetary Sciences Department picnic. The games are the same every year: sack races, water balloon toss, 3 legged race, and a hippie or two bring along frisbees and slacklines and such. Last year somebody made a beautiful pork-yata, depicting the tectonic plates with raw bacon (as an entry to the cook-off under the category "most creative use of pig"). It was filled with pork rinds and it was awesome.

I decided there must be a pinata this year as well. But of course, mine would be a glorious foram. Here is an example of one of the most creative protozoans I know!


I paper mache-ed old scientific papers onto balloons for the first three chambers, then joined them together with yarn. Then I inserted a fourth balloon into the gap, inflated said balloon, and paper-mache-ed over that bad boy to finish.

I was quite pleased with the results, except for some unfortunate gilding of the lily I refer to now as the glitter spackle debacle. It was the biggest foram I have ever seen!

Foram Beret

In keeping with the "testy" theme for at least one more post, here is a fun foram beret that I crocheted a while back. I think it would be fun to add earflaps yet, we'll see. It doesn't really get cold enough here to wear hats.




Real Planktonic foram for reference:
http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/mgg/image/foram.gif

Handmade crochet hooks

I really wanted to try making my own crochet hooks. It seems like all the larger sizes are made of cheap annoying plastic, and I wanted wood. After a few trips to San Lorenzo Lumber for various tools and about 2lbs of wood shavings on my floor, here's what I ended up with.


It was surprisingly hard work, so I don't know if I'll go into mass production, but I really like them. I don't know anybody else who has crochet hooks with foram woodburning.