Today the Department of Teeny-weeny Wonders was delighted to learn about the work of Buckinghamshire, England-based illustrator Chloe Giordano, who uses freehand embroidery to create incredibly small, yet finely detailed depictions of animals.
The final works of a sleeping fawn or mouse are scarcely larger than the size of a thimble, yet can take long periods of time to complete as she mixes myriad thread colors to achieve perfection for each piece.
In addition to wonderfully wee embroidered pieces like those pictured here, Giordano also creates 3D sculptures. You can keep up with all of Chloe Giordano’s artwork right here on Tumblr at karenin. She’s currently available for comission-based work as well.
[via Colossal]
Circular song
Medieval music books, with their merry notes jumping off the page, are a pleasure to look at. This sensational page from the 14th century adds to this experience in a most unusual manner. It presents a well-known song, the French ballade titled En la maison Dedalus (In the house of Dedalus), be it that the scribe decided to write both music and lyrics in a circular form. There is reason behind this madness. The maze created by music and words locks up the main character of the song, the mythological figure Ariadne, who is a prisoner in the house of Daedalus - she is represented by the red dot. The book contains treatises on music theory, notation, tuning and chant. In other words, it was meant for experts readers. The beholder likely enjoyed the challenge of singing a circular song (did he or she spin the book around?) and how it held its subject hostage in the merriest of ways.
Pic: Berkeley, Music Library, MS 744 (made in Paris in 1375). More about the manuscript here, including more unusual images. This is a study of the book (the ballade is discussed at p. 14).
The Secret To Building The Pyramids Has Been Discovered
The secret behind the moving of heavy and large stones to construct the Pyramids, the last remaining Ancient World Wonders, has been discovered and revealed by a team of scientists.
The scientists, consisting of physicists from the FOM Foundation and the University of Amsterdam , believe the ancient Egyptians used a ‘clever trick to make it easier to transport heavy pyramids stones by sledge’: wet sand.
“The Egyptians moistened the sand over which the sledge moved. By using the right quantity of water, they could halve the number of workers needed,” says a statement released by the physicists.
The dampness of the sand from pouring the right amount of water significantly reduced friction and how much force was required to move the huge stones, which, on average, are approximately 2.5 tons in weight.
The physicists explain that wet sand is twice as stiff and firm as dry sand. This, and the fact that the wet sand would not pile up in front of a sledge, allowed the sledge to far more easily glide over the firm desert sand.
Breakfast sandwich with semi-hard egg, kale, spicy beer cheese, coppa and black pepper.
Very very close to the SCRATCH Bread breakfast sammy but not nearly as good because the bread I picked up from the grocery store bin was wildly disappointing. I ended up picking at the insides and leaving the bread behind.
