Saturday, November 13, 2010

3 Months? No way!

Hey, Mooser!

It's been three months since either of us has posted! That is unacceptable. So I'm going to post about...

FEMALE ANATOMY! yaaaaaay are you excited? I bet.

A few weeks ago you commissioned a uterus, and I finished it in one night. Unfortunately, it looked like it was done in one night. So I'm going to make a second attempt -- perhaps tonight! Anyway, I wanted to share with you some of my inspiration photos and thoughts about how to improve the idea so it looks less like a balloon with arms and more like the most fundus organ in the female body - the uterus!

Here it sits with my heart! The uterus is about 4in tall, which is about 1in taller than it should be, but making it shorter would probably be really hard. It will take careful planning, which is certainly not a strength of mine.

The obvious problems with this design are the overall shape of the uterus which is simultaneously triangular and rectangular (which is really hard to reproduce), the fallopes are not properly shaped (but to do so I would need wire), and the cervix is actually only a tiny bit narrower than the body of the organ, but there are multiple diagrams of the cervix and uterus that are conflicting. I have gathered a few laparoscopic images to help clarify these anatomical features, and would appreciate input as you are the only one I know who has had such intimate contact with a uterus (in a medical setting). hey-oh!

Diagrams often depict the cervix as a very tiny doughnut, and has always been described to me in biology classes as "tiny", which fueled my misconception that the cervix was a tiny button-shaped opening on the bottom of the uterus. In looking at more diagrams, though, the cervix appears to be no narrower than the bottom portion of the uterus, while the opening is of course very small. So! In the next design, I will have to try to make the cervix blend a lot more with the rest of the uterus body instead of abruptly narrowing the design. I think I will keep the technique of making a tube extending from the uterus and folding it in on itself to create the rounded opening. Hopefully it will work!
 This is by far my favorite photo so far - it clearly shows the fallopes, the ovaries, and the overall shape of the organ. Here, the fallopes look folded downward as opposed to being bent outward as diagrams usually show, though this is only one view and other perspectives show a different curvature. Not to neglect that every woman's precise anatomy will be different, which slightly complicates the matter. I like this photo also because it shows the different contours from the semi-triangular top, a pinch in the middle, and a bulbous bottom. I think this shape would be more interesting (and probably easier) to reproduce, and would help lead into the cervix better. I didn't include the ovaries the first time, but will have to next time. It would be most anatomically correct to include the sheet of tissue that holds everything together, but that would obscure the other bits and seems like it would be annoying to knit.

Anyway, that's it for now. I'll update with a new and hopefully improved version of the uterus.

Love,
Beans

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