Happy 2011, and quilt world meets lab world...

I hope all of you had a great time ringing in the new year!  Let's all hope that it's a kinder, gentler one for everyone!  We let the kids stay up until midnight, then all went to bed a few minutes later!  They should go to sleep easy tonight, especially since they spent the whole day sledding behind our house!

As mentioned, I'm starting my "fun-a-day" project today!  I've already done a little "prep" work, but today I started in earnest.

I'm calling it "quilt world, meet medical lab world".  Part of my medical technologist world was spent looking at countless  microscope slides of blood and other body fluids.  More often than not, they were stained with vibrant dyes and stains to differentiate cells, organisms and cellular structures.  A prerequisite for medical technologists is a color-blind test.  Even before I started school, we had to be tested, because the ability to see color correctly is essential.  One of my favorite aspects of that job, and of quilting is the variety of colors I got to work with each day.

So, for the next 31 days, I'll try to post my thread and fabric interpretation of different things I saw as a medical technologist, starting with this one I did today:

It's a "normal" blood smear.  The red circles are red blood cells, the tiny purple dots are platelets, and the bigger cell in the middle is the most common white blood cell typically seen, a neutrophil.  By looking at blood smears, part of a "CBC", or complete blood count, we can detect many abnormalities, or diseases.  The red blood cells carry oxygen to all parts of the body.  The platelets help stop bleeding when we are injured, and the white cells help fight infection.

Stay tuned to see what's up my sleeve next.  I promise it will involve a needle, but one sewing thread, not drawing blood!!