My new job really gets in the way of my crafting time. But happily, it has not been work getting in the way over the past couple of weeks, but holidaying! Woo! We went back to England for a visit, and spent a lot of time in a hire car driving over a thousand miles visiting friends and family.

When we moved to California, I left my car with Brother Marsh for safekeeping and a little TLC, so it is currently in pieces……. But can we just take a quick moment to admire how shiny my engine is?

The rest of the car is looking not so good, all of the rusty panels are starting to be removed, ready for pretty much a full restore:

It wasn’t all a hectic trip however, we also spent a couple of nights at our favourite hotel in Mawgan Porth, relaxing in the spa and enjoying the view:

Lovely!

I have also now singed up to do a class at UC Berkeley Extension as part of my ongoing battle to become qualified to do what I have done for the past 8 years in the UK. Physics people. I gotta do Physics. *sigh* I also had to buy the mandatory textbook, and it came loose leaf – very bizarre, never had a loose leaf textbook before – and they had punched the binder holes IN THE WRONG SIDE. So I have to read it back to front. Seriously people. You had one job.

So, back to my little project. This little beastie is the most common cause of bacterial gastrointestinal infections in the UK. In the laboratory, Campylobacter spp. is pretty easy to identify, specific agar is incubated in a microaerophilic environment at 42 degrees, the colonies have a characteristic appearance, which can be confirmed with a quick Gram stained smear, which reveals spiral or “gull wing” shaped rods:

Thanks Campy! You make our job really quite easy! If you look a little more closely using an electron microscope, you can see the spiral shape visible under the light microscope, but also the flagella attached to the end of the cell (or either end if it has bipolar flagella).

Campylobacter can be unipolar or bipolar as pictured below:

So anyway, I had taken some crafting supplies away with us, and spent an hour or two making this little guy:

You want to make your own? Well bear with me, here goes:

Crochet Campylobacter Pattern

Required:

Yarn – I used some of the leftover yarn from this cushion (and still have more left!), which was Loops and Threads Impeccable in a nice bright pink – it is a Gram-negative bacterium after all! You don’t need a lot at all, so feel free to use up whatever oddments you have lying around, it doesn’t know what colour it is supposed to be in textbooks!

Crochet hook – to suit whatever yarn you are using, I used a 4mm hook (rather than the 5mm recommended for my yarn), as I wanted quite a tight firm structure

Safety eyes – optional, but mine were 6mm plain black. You could alternatively stitch on some features if you wanted.

Pattern:

Start off with a magic ring.

Round 1: Crochet 6 sc into the ring (6sts)

Round 2: (2sc into next 2 sc, sc in next sc) x2 (10sts)

Round 3: (sc in next 4 sc, 2sc in next sc) x2 (12sts)

Rounds 4-6: sc in each sc Note: For a little bit of extra character, you could add some eyes, the ones I used were 6mm safety eyes, inserted a couple of stitches apart between the 1st and 2nd, and 3rd and 4th stitches of rounds 5 and 6..

Rounds 7-30: hdc in next 6 sc, sc in next 6 sc Note: stuff as you go along, making sure it is firm and even.

Rounds 31-33: sc in each sc

Round 34: (sc in next 4 sc, sc2tog) x2 (10sts)

Round 35: (sc2tog x2, sc in next sc) x2 (6sts)

Round 36: sc2tog x3

Next, instead of binding off, chain stitch until the length is greater than the length of the spiral tube, then work slip stitch into the chain, all the way back to the beginning, slip stitching to the end of the spiral tube and binding off, working in the ends.

Campylobacter can have unipolar, or bipolar flagella, so if you like, you can repeat this process at the opposite end also.

While it was a work in progress, I pulled it out of my bag at the pub……. I think most people thought it looked a little phallic! But now I think it looks super cute!

It has been lurking near the eggs……

What a naughty bacterium!