Monday, February 5, 2007

Magical Mobcap Mystery Shawl as Microbe

The more rows I finished, the more it reminded me of something really unpleasant from my past life as a molecular biologist. Reaching back into the dim recesses of my brainware, I realized that it looked just like Serratia marcescens, a grim species of bacteria that I once found growing in an experiment. My professor freaked, I freaked, and we all spent a long day sterilizing everything in the laboratory, including my knitting needles.

Among other happy habitats, Serratia marcescens can often be found growing in tile grout. It's only positive aspect is that it's pink, although some of you will no doubt think that's a drawback.


Serratia marcescens

Knitting


In any case, it is now.................

7 comments:

Janice in GA said...

Ah, so you ripped it all out, eh? Was it mostly the color or the boring pattern?

Lacefreak said...

Ribbit, Ribbit. You and I are just frogging fools lately. But it is strangely cleansing to unburden yourself of things you really don't want to knit in the first place. Good for you!

Operakatz said...

....gleefully leaping into the pond du grenouille...

Yea the handpainted laceweights can knit up weird sometimes...maybe something rectangular that doesn't grow in width...

Lori said...

Well, I showed up searching Mountain Ash, and stayed for the knitting and frogs... sorry about the frogging, though.
Two questions for you, if you have the time: Has anyone figured an approximate yardage for Mountain Ash? and are the froggies at the bottom of this post your creation?

Anonymous said...

So, what is so grim about it that it necessitates sterilizing the whole lab?
I get pink mildew in my shower sometimes, it that worse than I thought?
(I'm not a fan of that varigation with the lace either, maybe if the repeats were shorter...)

fleegle said...

Well, Anonymous, when you are working in a laboratory, contamination will wreak havoc on your experiments.

This stuff causes so many revolting diseases, I won't even list them. You can google and be horrified. Blurgh.

Experimental Knitter said...

Fleegle, what a coincidence! my DH is a molecular biologist, I'm an immunologist who worked her way through college as a hospital microbiologist. Currently we are both faculty at a med school.
One year for science fair for one child, DH brought home Rodac plate for culturing the bathroom. Nothing grew! A testimony to my housekeeping skills. He left the plates open in strategic spots instead, where breezes blew things in.