So! Very often I make beaded gifts for teachers. This year, I’m taking Organic Chemistry and Molecular Biology. I decided to make a model molecule and a strand of DNA for each teacher, respectively.
The model molecule will be modified CRAW and use seed beads, crystals, and hex beads. The DNA molecule is a work in progress!
See, although I love love love Gwen Fisher’s DNA pattern, I have a few issues with it. First, and most bratty, it’s a little boring. Second, it doesn’t display the major and minor grooves in DNA. Third, the DNA molecules don’t have the sugar-phosphate backbone that real DNA molecules have.
So I’m stupidly making my own pattern, hallelujah! You see some of my notes above. In the progress shot, you’ll note part of the molecule- note the cube and tetrahedron (I’m testing them out.) More importantly, though, you can see the first base pair I’ve created for the DNA strand. Still rough and kind of gross, of course. It is an unholy combination of SRAW, herringbone, and Albion stitch. That’s just the base pairs, of course; I still have to figure out how to model the rest.