Sunday, October 9, 2011

Molecular Tea Cosy

About six months ago (maybe more, this year has gone so fast!), I came up with the idea of making a tea cosy embroidered with some of the molecules in tea.  After a few stops and starts and side projects (laptop sleeve, hats that look like strawberries, assorted cute thinks like robots, zebras and german shepherds, a sweater that I'm never going to finish...), I've finally finished it!




I can't remember what the stitch the tea cosy is worked in is called.  It's some sort of variation on double crochet that gives a nice slant that helps with the embroidering of the hexagons.  It's surprisingly difficult to get a proper run down of the molecules in tea, but after some digging I found (and have since lost) a couple of documents that had some structures.  I was quite limited in what I could use because due to size constraints, but I managed to fit a representative range.  The molecules are:

 Gallic acid on the top flap (top photo)



Hesperetin (a flavanone)



Caffeine (awesome)



Quercetin (also a flavanone)



Theanine (an amino acid)



There are also a number of water molecules in prime hydrogen bonding positions (yes, I'm a nerd).

2 comments:

  1. Oh My - I am so a nerd too, and LOVE this. Will you be posting the pattern?

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  2. Thanks! Health, PhD and other distractions permitting, I'll try and post the pattern in the next month or so.

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