It’s been a while, and I’ve been struggling with serious mental health issues, so apologies for the lack of posts. I’m starting back with an easy post to document the last progress on the bacterial cell membrane!
Gram staining is about the least sexy of all microbial lab experiments, but its my go-to favourite. Lots of visuals, colour and instant results. It’s still the first place I start when identifying unknown bacteria. And I have carried out thousands of them 😫, so it seemed like a good idea for my next science crochet project. I wanted something 3D and tactile rather than the flat images you usually see in text books. So here we have the Granny Square Bacterial Cell Membrane:
Originally the fatty acids were crocheted with 100 % acrylic yarn, but there was too much curling in the final product, so I swapped to cotton yarn which has less curl and a stiffer texture:
Crocheted in 100 % cotton yarn:
And finally, a new addition to the project, some peptidoglycan layering in two colour popcorn stitch!:
Will it be Gram positive or Gram negative 🤔?
I will update with fully labelled images when I’m back at work in mid-August!