The Pineneedle Collective: Katie Buddle

Showing posts with label Katie Buddle. Show all posts

Saturday 16 August 2014

Best Fr3ndz & X-Rays

Me and the gorgeous Katie had planned to spend all of Friday crafting together, when I remembered last minute that I had an appointment for an X-ray, smack-bang in the middle of the day. I was going to have to cancel our craft date - something we'd both been looking forward to all week - and spend the day being irradiated instead. Yay. But because Katie is amazing, she insisted on coming with me on the 2-hour long train trip to the radiologists, to sit with me in the boring waiting room and hold my hand. She even starved with me in solidarity (I had to fast before the X-ray). There is a reason best friends are called best friends - because they are the actual best.

Katie turned a potentially crappy day into a really lovely one, and we even did get to do a bit of crafting in the end - I'm helping Katie to make her very first dress (using my DIY dress pattern tutorial).

These pictures were taken a while ago now, but I think they're perfect for today's post!

Dress and jacket are thrifted | tights are from Japan | shoes are c/o Chicwish (ages old, no longer for sale) | Katie's dress is thrifted (a gift from me!)

Also, in honour of the amazing science and diagnostic tool that is x-rays, here is a wonderful series of gifs by Cameron Drake and Dr Noah Weiss that show the joints of the human body in motion:

The knee cap

Shoulder joint

Wrist and Hand

Human beings have a few different types of joints, including hinge joints (just like a hinge on a door, like in the knee), ball-and-socket (like in the shoulder, which allows wide rotation) and pivot joints (like the one at the top of your spine that allows you to rotate your head in a "no" motion). You don't really think about how they work until you start to have problems (or you are an anatomy student), but when you have a closer look, you can appreciate what an amazing machine the body is!

You can see a few more joints in motion on the IFLS website.

Monday 21 July 2014

Tartan Dresses and Paper Folds

Dress is from Renew Vintage | tights are from Japan | shoes are no longer available

I am so glad that Katie convinced me to buy this dress while we were at Sydney's Finders Keepers a couple of months back! I noticed it early on in the night, but didn't try it on "in case I loved it", and proceeded to fret for hours while creepily returning to the store 3 or 4 times to stare at it. Sick of me being a weirdo and possibly freaking out the store owner, Katie forced me to try it on, "and then, when it doesn't fit, you won't regret anything!"
Unfortunately, it fit perfectly. This caused much more fretting on my part. Katie told me I had to buy it. I said no. Then a stranger walked by and told me how good it looked, and that I had to buy it. "Oh, maybe I should buy it!" I exclaimed, and proceeded to buy the dress. "Cool, don't listen to me then, listen to a stranger," grumbled Katie.

So that's the story of this dress. I'm really happy that I bought it now, regardless of the fact that I have way too many dresses in my wardrobe (psst! Buy my clothes! You know you want to!)

Speaking of Katie, she is still gallivanting around Finland and isn't going to be back for another two weeks, boo! I miss her so much!

Alright, want your MIND TO EXPLODE?! (Not literally, obviously. I promise that all mind explosions that may result will be of the good kind.)

If it were possible to fold a normal piece of paper in half 104 times (it isn't possible, by the way - the record is 12 times - if you don't believe me, go and try it yourself) then the resulting width of folded paper would be as BIG as the entire observable universe.

Cool!... wait. How?!

Exponentials, baby! Watch this video:

And I hope that you're all having a wonderful day.

Wednesday 2 July 2014

Thrifted Transformations (Apron to a Pinafore) & Water All Over Mars

I made this pinafore out of an apron that I found at the op-shop! The apron had enough material that I could wrap it all the way around my booty, so I simply inserted a zipper where the material joined up at the back - and BAM, cute pinafore!

It also had these cutie-patootie buttons on the shoulders, so there was no way that I could leave it as an apron! While Katie has successfully rocked an apron over the top of a cute blouse and skirt (not only while cooking, but as an actual outfit) I preferred making mine into a pinafore dress.

Now I'm on the lookout for cute aprons everywhere...

Also, me and Katie are massive dorks, but our outfits match! Check us out:

Pinafore is thrifted/DIY | cardigan and blouse are thrifted | tights from Japan | boots are from Golden Ponies

I love speculative science almost as much as real science! And while we can never know for sure what happened billions of years ago (at least without a time machine), this video from NASA is based on real calculations and observations as well. From the NASA, this is what Mars probably looked like 4 billion years ago:

A thick atmosphere once allowed water to cover the surface of Mars, which may have disappeared over time either because of asteroids or solar wind (which is a stream of electricity, blown out of the sun). The video above shows the passage of time, from 4 billion years ago to how we know the planet today - an icy red rock with a thin atmosphere and no liquid water.

But how do we have any idea of what Mars used to look like?? NASA explains the evidence here. You should definitely have a read if you have the time, it's super fascinating!

Monday 30 June 2014

Eggs, Oranges and Billion Story Buildings

Annika: everything is thrifted except shirt (c/o Sheinside (ages ago) and shoes (Naot)) and handmade egg brooch
Katie: Everything is thrifted except for handmade egg brooch and earrings (made by us!)

Hi all! I am posting this with a very heavy heart because Katie is just about to hop on a plane to Scandinavia for the whole of July, and I'm at a complete loss as to what I'm going to do without her! Over the last 6 months we've grown incredibly close, spending much of our spare time hanging out, making crafts, talking about feminism, anthropology and science and dressing up like weirdos together. I cried even more after we said goodbye than when my boyfriend left the other day (also for a month-long holiday in Europe *grumble jealousy grumble*).

So we spent all of yesterday hanging out and taking photos, our outfits becoming progressively more ridiculous as the day went on. I styled both of our outfits here - for some reason I was feeling Autumnal even though it isn't Autumn anywhere in the world right now. Autumn and... eggs. Because eggs are awesome. Yep.

I also forced Katie to buy these cute chilli suspenders the other day because I thought they suited her perfectly - what do you guys think?

So I've posted about What If before (a website where a physicist takes ridiculous questions completely seriously), and I really liked this particular one so I wanted to share it!

This question actually comes from a 4-year-old, so it's also super cute. If you were to build a skyscraper with one billion stories.... just how big would it be? This is also happens to help you get your head around the concept of a "billion" - it's just so large!

The illustration above (by XKCD's What If) shows a skyscraper that's only 10,000 floors high. Still much smaller than a billion! Click here to see what a billion-story building would look like!

I hope that you're all having a lovely day.

Thursday 12 June 2014

Mrs Strong: A Mr Men DIY

Last Friday I woke up determined to make something of these Mr Men bedsheets that I found at the op shop 3 or 4 months ago. I sent Katie a quick message asking if she wanted to join me in a crafting-session so we could make ourselves matching outfits for the Finders Keepers Craft Markets later that night. She responded with an enthusiastic yes, but unfortunately she started feeling really anxious and had to cancel. I felt terrible having my main girl feel so bad, and wanted to do anything that I could to help, so I spent the whole day binge-listening to podcasts and working on some skirts for us both. After making two matching circle skirts, I thought I would cut around one of the Mr Men characters and turn it into a pinafore-style dress - after transforming "Mr" Strong into "Mrs Strong" of course (that's what I think of your sexist gender-binaries, Roger Hargreaves! Did you know that the "Mr Men" and "Little Misses" live in "Misterland"? *grumpy face*). I also put some stuffing inside the pinafore-bit to help it keep its shape, and I'm so happy with how it turned out.

So I turned up later that afternoon at Katie's apartment with a surprise gift, and told her that anytime she is feeling bad she should put on the pinafore and remember how amazing and strong she is ('coz she is)! We then proceeded to have the best time at the Finders Keepers markets, meeting hundreds of wonderfully crafty people, being complimented on our style by literally everyone we talked to, feeling massively good about ourselves and (half-jokingly) scheming on a plan to drop out of uni and open our own craft business.

Pop along to Katie's blog to see more photos and close-ups of her Mrs Strong pinafore. Also, if you've ever suffered from anxiety or are close to someone who does, Katie's latest blog post will probably really resonate with you. Give it a read :)

I hope that you're all having a wonderful week!

Thursday 5 June 2014

Floppy Thrift Shop Dresses / Bad Cholesterol?

Dress is thrifted | cardigan and basket are thrifted | necklace c/o Eccentric Electricity | shoes are Naot | tights are OKOK

This week Craft n' Crumble Tuesday also became Craft, Crumble and CAMERA Tuesday (eh, eh?) with me and the wonderful Katie deciding to put on our very best floppy thrift shop dresses to take these rather silly photos. And no, we weren't going on a picnic or anything - this picnic basket is apparently just Katie's new handbag now. I like it.

So guess who got full marks on their biochemistry blog-post assignment! ;___;

I also got the loveliest feedback, not only from my professor but from all of you guys as well, so thank you! It was so good reading all of the insightful comments that you left, and feeling all warm and fuzzy about the fact that I have such intelligent people coming to read what I write here. I might stop now before I get too sappy, but I love you guys!

I definitely want to do more biochemistry and genetics posts, because it really seemed like you guys were interested in that, plus it's my passion! So I'll bring you some interesting tidbits from the stuff I've been studying (it'll help me study, as well. Win win)!

The chemical structure of cholesterol, for all you chemistry nerds out there.

Today I'm going to give you the rundown on cholesterol. It's actually pretty fascinating.

For all the bad press that cholesterol gets, it's actually an extremely important molecule to have in your body. Remember how we talked about cells? Well the thing that keeps all the water, DNA, proteins and other useful stuff inside each cell is something called a membrane. These membranes are partly made up of fats. Cholesterol slots into the membranes, gives them strength and also makes them flexible and impermeable so you can import things in and out of the cell. It's also used in making hormones.

And it's so important that your body actually makes its own cholesterol.

So then, you might ask, what's with all the bad rap that cholesterol gets? Well, every cell in your body is able to "take in" cholesterol. Unfortunately, you have one type of cell in your body called a macrophage (a type of white blood cell) which is totally cholesterol-happy.

Macrophages just can't get enough of that sweet sweet cholesterol, and will gobble it up whenever they see the chance. Unfortunately, when the cholesterol levels in your blood are way too high, the macrophages ingest WAY too much cholesterol, become all foamy, die, and make plaques which stick onto your blood vessels. Too much of this, and undesireable things like strokes and heart attacks ensue - and that's why too much cholesterol is a bad, bad thing.

What I imagine macrophages look like when they come across cholesterol.

So to stop your macrophages from overdosing on delicious cholesterol, you obviously need to limit the amount of cholesterol you are eating. Cholesterol-rich foods include meat and dairy, so going easy on these can help. Remember that your body also makes its own cholesterol - if you don't eat any, your body will compensate and just make more.

So what you really want to do is to eat things which compete with cholesterol absorption from the gut. Many plants are rich in cholesterol-inhibitors called phytosterols and eating lots of these can reduce the amount of cholesterol in your bloodstream.

There is also a link - which is still not very well understood - between polyunsaturated fats (think vegatable oils and fish) lowering the amounts of blood cholesterol, and producing more of these special proteins called HDLs which "mop up" excess cholesterol from your blood before those darn macrophages get to it.

I hope you guys learnt something new, and I also hope that you're having a great day!