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Glasgow Science Center Seeks Knit Germs

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knit microbesThe Glasgow City of Science is attempting to break a world record with a hygiene lesson later this month, but they need some help from knitters in order to do so.

The plan is to involve primary school students across the city and to use knitted microbes such as E. coli, the common cold and swine flu to show how germs are passed from person to person.

With about two weeks left until the planned event, they’re still in need of a lot of wooly germs.

At last check they had just over 700 of the microbes and still needed 980 to meet their goal.

This is probably a shoutout better directed to UK knitters and those in Europe, but if you’ve got a little time and some yarn on your hands in the next few days, why not knit up some microbes to help kids? You’ll be able to say you were part of one of the weirdest knitting-related world records I’ve yet heard of, and that’s saying something.

If you were wondering, the current record for the largest hygiene lesson is held by the Health Protection Agency in England, which included 2,147 students from schools across the UK in a lesson in 2012. The hope is that the Glasgow lesson can include more than 36,000 children at all the primary schools, who will take part in a 40-minute lesson on handwashing and the spread of germs.

Have you ever knit a microbe? I’d love to hear about it!

[Photo via the Glasgow City of Science.]

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Beyond Basic Pumpkin Knitting Patterns

Over the years I have shared a lot of pumpkin knitting patterns, and I’ve knit and crocheted a lot of pumpkins myself. But it feels like there are always more fun things to try with knit pumpkins, so this year I wanted to look a little more beyond basic stockinette or ribbed pumpkins and share some pumpkin patterns with cables, bobbles and colorwork. 

In the cable collection we’ve got these cute little basic cable and ribbed pumpkins from Elly Bear Knits. There are two sizes that make a wide, flat pumpkin and a taller round pumpkin. Both are worked in the round as a tube that’s cinched top and bottom when you’re done, and they use bulky weight yarn. 

Another cute cable pumpkin knitting pattern comes from Gray Bear Akswokrat. This one is knit flat and it looks like a chunky yarn but you could use other weights to make pumpkins of different sizes. This one also has an I-cord stem and uses yarn to cinch up the sections of the pumpkin, giving it a more natural look. 

Add some bobbles to your pumpkins with this design from Autumn Shelter Makes. Also worked in the round in a tube, it features a repeating pattern of bobbles and uses yarn wrapped around the outside to make segments. This one looks like worsted weight yarn to me. 

Of course there’s nothing that says your pumpkin has to be a single color, so let’s throw in some colorwork. I love the look of the Cozy Fall Pumpkin knitting pattern from South Stitch Girls. The little leather loop adds a rustic touch but you could also just add a stick. These pumpkins have five colorwork options and are worked in worsted weight yarn in the round. 

There’s also the Autumn Fair Isle Trio pumpkins pattern from Equestriann Style, which has three different sizes of pumpkins with four colorwork designs. They are worked in super bulky yarn in the round and look good with high contrast or more muted color combinations.