There are still a lot of things left to do, and to add to the scarcity of time and the amount of things to do, I have to do a library run this week.
Today's the day to write a list with all the stuff I will take for the weekend and try getting some more sewing done - yesterday I got stuck at the computer all the time. One of the reasons was that the info-brochure for the Textilforum was due to go to the printer. It's finished now, I hope I didn't miss any errors in the proofing process, and I hope that the colours will turn out acceptably.

As current working projects, I have the dress, the hairnet, a hood that I can't continue working on at the moment since I am waiting for a pinking tool to arrive, and I started a tablet weave play band, contrary to all good intentions (but using as an excuse that I'm preparing a workshop on tablet weaving). There's stuff coming towards me by post - not only the brochures, but also yarns and the pinking tool, so I'm in a state of happy anticipation. And hope I can finish today's computer work before noon, so I can sit in the sun and sew...

It has taken us longer than we hoped to find a new date, but at last, the search was successful. Now we don't have a too tight schedule or an overlap with the planned dates of either of the two conflicting conferences, the EXAR conference 2009 in Hungary and the Conference for Archaeological Dyes and Dyeing.

The new date is even a bit earlier in the year, which hopefully means warmer and overall slightly better weather. The Textilforum will take place in the beautiful Open Air Museum in Eindhoven, Netherlands, from the 8th to 13th of September. If you are interested in historical textile crafts, this might be the place for you!

You can find more information at the forum website www.textilforum.org, where you can also subscribe for the forum newsletter, bringing you news and notice of updates of the site. Or contact me if you have questions.

After finally designing (and getting printed) a new business card last year, now it is time to get some more promotional material. So these days see me surfing the web to catch up on the do's and don'ts for flyer and brochure design - like the Flyer Tutorials on allgraphicdesign.

I know that for a lot of small-scale freelancers, doing all the things needed for a business (even a tiny business) is exhausting and unnerving. For me, that is not so, and I count myself very lucky for that. While I don't actually enjoy bookkeeping and writing invoices and haggling for money, I know that it is part of the whole package, and I do it for me. Other things, like design work for advertisement or typography for texts? I love them. And it just adds to the beauty of the job, in my eyes, that I get to do something new and refreshing from time to time.

I have the basic concept ready, now I need to write the advertisement texts and spice it up with some pretty pictures. Both text and pictures will probably take a good bit of time, but fortunately it is not pressing yet. I want the flyers to be ready by end of February, so there is still some time to mull over the design in between other work - just the way I like to do these things.

It's about 10°C below zero outside, the coldest it has been in this otherwise mild region for ages. There's snow outside, covering most of the bike paths and some of the streets, and for once it has not turned to mud and slush. People are bundled up in thick, warm jackets, wearing gloves and scarves and hats; bicyclists slow down while their wheels dig forward through the snow.

I'm sitting in my cosily heated study again and pondering the near future. Two of my projects have ground to a halt, one lying on ice for the next four months, the other tagged with "take it easy, go slowly, evaluate thoroughly" and thus not on speed either. So this is the time to occupy myself with number three, going on with building the concept and figuring out things - mostly reading and brainstorming work. And with that phase come the worries - is it enough? is it too much? is the concept good? how long will it take? how much good, useful material can I get?

So the next week will see me stockpiling books from the library, reading, researching and brainstorming. I am confident that by the end of next week, I will have a nice concept and a better overview over the topic, since I have already done some preliminary work on this a few months ago. And probably I'll be all excited about it again and raring to write. While the phase of doubts and worries can be stressful, I'm still glad about it - after all, it is a good thing to re-evaluate and re-think a concept after a while. And a little doubt can help a lot at the right place and time.

... and so I'm doubly excited about next October! Why? Because we are organising a get-together for historical textile crafts at the wonderful open air museum in Eindhoven.

I have heard a lot of people in the last years utter something like "it is a pity that living history and current research don't communicate more". And we could surely all profit from more and better communication and better sharing of experiences. But how, and where? During the Exar conference in Oldenburg last October, we decided to give it a try and organise such a meet-up possibility.
At long last, there will be a place and time for professionals, researchers and living history/reenactment people to get together and hopefully learn from each other.

Today I spent the whole morning getting the website up and running, just so you can have a sneak peek at www.textilforum.org (and so I can finally spill the beans about it). There are no pictures yet and of course we don't have the full programme already, but you can subscribe to the newsletter and get an update whenever the website or our planning does.

If you are working in historical textile crafts, do take a look - and I hope that you get as thrilled about the Textilforum as we are!

I feel like I've never done so much planning so far in advance before, and this might be true. After all, this is my first year of working freelance in full-time, not just part-time in addition to studies.

All these dates and deadlines and things that are already filling up my calender make me a little queasy in the stomach region, but on the other hand, I get really excited about them. At least I won't be dying of boredom next year! There is a bunch of conferences during the year, some that I have already applied for and more that would love to go to - and how can you not want to go to a conference that calls for papers like Borderlines XIII? Though there's a family birthday on that date, which is kind of sad since I can't be there and here at the same time. Then I need to figure out how much time all my projects will eat, so I don't plan too many trips and conferences.

For the moment, I have two presentations/lectures coming up, one in January and one in March, at the conference about colours in the Middle ages, so it is time to prepare for those. Powerpoint, here I come!