Thursday, June 27, 2013

Quilting in Science

I've been at training this week and have not had time or energy for quilting.  Mom is back in the hospital again and I've been doing a lot of talking to people on the phone.  We will be headed up this weekend so that I can help out in person for a while.
I couldn't go a week without any quilt related something though.  So today we were using an i-pad microscope to do epidermal peels of leaves in order to study the size and density of stomata.  Cool right?!  All you do is paint clear fingernail polish on a leaf and then use a bit of transparent tape to pull it up.  So we did monocots and dicots, top and bottom surface, they were all nice.  Then I got this peel from a fern leaf which is a seedless vascular plant and not an angiosperm at all.  How much does that look like a free motion quilting pattern to you?
Wait, here it is on high power.  Tell me that doesn't just scream meander to you?  So we each presented out findings to the class and I let them know that I would be posting my images on my quilt blog.  Now that I need to figure out how to overlay a grid on the image and calibrate it to get a density per square unit of surface area measurement.  Technology and science are both so cool.  I am having much fun at the workshop, learning lots of cool things to do with my students, and best of all, I get to take the toys back to my classroom to use and to play with!
Hopefully quilt related posts will continue someday soon.  

7 comments:

Angie said...

Cool post - love how you related science and quilting! Best wishes for your weekend trip, I am in the same boat in dealing with parental health problems when I live far away. I'm so glad both of my sisters still live in Florida, only a few hours away!

Kate said...

Wow, so cool. You get to do such neat stuff!

Barb said...

Hope your mom is ok

Andee said...

Very cool on the quilting designs from science! Sorry to hear your mom isn't doing so great, hope that improves soon!

Terri said...

I know I learned a lot of those words in high school, but sooooo long ago! Amoeba is another one that I'd associate with your meander pattern.
Hugs

maureen said...

Science is everywhere!! I keep telling my students to open their eyes and observe all the wonders. Thank you for opening my eyes today!

Margaret said...

Now that is definitely cool! Will it work on just any leaf?