Funk & Weber Designs

DNA Bookmarks

Reading The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks inspired me to dig out the DNA bookmark I created some time ago. I love this design.

Funk & Weber DNA Bookmarks

Two-dimensional photos don’t do it justice, if you ask me.

I experimented with some different techniques, lengths, and products, thinking I would publish this pattern.

Then it dawned on me that I might enter it in the Craft It Forward contest. I want to read the rules again and look at Sponsor products to see if I might incorporate some in the design. Sounds like a good weekend project, don’t you think?

It looks as though public voting helps determine contest winners. I don’t like that, but I may enter anyway. I like asking people to vote for my submission almost as much as I like brussels sprouts and lima beans.

Might you use a book that you’re reading to inspire an original bookmark design that you can enter into the contest and then donate to a Stitching for Literacy collection?

10 replies »

  1. Jen, how well does this bookmark function when you use it? Do you flatten it out when you put it in the book?

  2. @Shelly – They’ll go on a shepherd’s hook and hang outside the books. I like that string of beads to dangle inside the coil, but took it out to show the embroidery better. Alternatively, the pattern can be ironed flat to go inside a book; I just happen to like it coiled. It could also be flattened in the coil so it zigzags.

    Huh…maybe I should show all three versions.

    @Christine – No published pattern yet, but I will publish it sometime after I enter it in the contest. The contest requires unpublished designs.

    Note to self: don’t forget to announce new patterns here as well as on the Funk & Weber World blog. I failed to do that for the first one. I don’t like repeating myself; how dull for those who read both blogs.

  3. I loved these when you first posted them, and I still do. I hope you win, but can’t wait for you to publish the design.

  4. Maureen, these are on Hardanger and 22-ct fabrics. They have a natural coil to them from the central twisting of fibers, but I help the coil with fabric stiffener. I didn’t do that initially, but found the fabric had a tendency to droop and look tired after a while.

  5. I hope you do create the pattern. I would like to make them for my book group which read The Immortal Life of Henrietta Lacks last year.

  6. Oh, this is so good! How did I miss this post? I spin further on KathyO’s idea:

    why don’t we (Ehe you Jen) collect our ideas of the perfect ( ideal) bookmark for each book we red this year in the S4L Book Club?

    Anyone can post their suggestion, or readymade example with foto and pattern or all we need to make one ourself, to Jen and she presents them on a separate (a new thread, button on the side or …) blogpost, so that it is easy to find… So slurkers, readers, commenters, bugs, ants and stitchers can participate, right! Jen will pick up this idea if it is worth anything…for a nutsletter or new post… Best regards from Harriet ( without spell check, again, soory)