Happy International Day of Women and Girls in STEM. In honour of the day, I’m sharing free crochet patterns for the appliques shown:

• female symbol,
• conical flask and
• test tube

The patterns should reach use less than 1 g of 8 ply yarn. You can use whatever colours or weight of yarn you have available.

The under-representation of women in STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths) is something that is very close to my heart as a women who works in science. Did you know that less than 30% of researchers worldwide are women? If we hope to to solve the greatest challenges facing the world today (like climate change) we need to have all the brightest people working on the solution but at present half our population is excluded, or discouraged from participating - this needs to change.