I blame today's very, very late blog post on the weather. To be more precise, I blame it on the light - I wanted to take the long overdue photos yesterday, but it was not light enough. So I waited until noon today... and now, finally, the plant-dyed silk embroidery threads are in the online shop.

(No use putting threads in there without pictures, right?)


And here they are, in all their splendour. Pictures don't do these justice, the colours are a lot nicer and more vibrant in reality.

I have limited stocks of some colours, and I realise that this is not the full palette that one might want to have for embroidery, but it's a good start - and I do take requests for other colours once a few have sold and I can think about widening the colour diversity.

I am still in the frenzies of preparation for the Kreativ - we will set up the booth on Wednesday, so there's today and tomorrow left for me to get all the ducks into nice, orderly rows.

Among the ducks to be herded was the winding of more linen sewing thread. For those of you who have bought and used the fine linen thread for your work and have fallen in love with it, I have bad news: my supply of that yarn is almost gone, and unfortunately the source of it has dried up. I still have some stock of the extra-fine linen sewing thread left, so that will be available for a little while longer, judging from the ratio at which the one and the other are selling, but eventually it will face the same destiny.

I'm a little sad about this, because I was always happy with the quality of that yarn and I have used it myself for a lot of sewing work. I've done my homework, and there will be a different-yet-similar linen thread in my shop once the old one is gone, or almost gone. However, if you know you will want exactly that thread that I have now in the shop - do stock up, because once it's gone, it will be gone forever.

The last few days, I did not only do some last-minute shopping for next week (I will be bringing hemp fibres, proper long ones, to the Forum), but I've also been stocking up on things. As of this morning, the linen tape in 3 and 5 cm width is back in the shop again, and I have finally taken the plunge and will soon offer naturally-dyed silk yarn for embroidery. The skeins have arrived, and now there is some winding into portions to do, and then some taking of photographs. I have a very dark blue that almost passes for black, a dark blue, an orange, brown, white, red, yellow and green - enough to serve quite a few embroidery needs!

I won't be able to get it into the online shop before the Textile Forum, so it will take a little longer before it's available - but I'm working on it! When I'm not doing the Forum preparation stuff, that is... fortunately, I'm almost finished. One of the big things still left to do is packing all the things I have to take with me, and taking care of details such as charging the camera batteries. There's a growing list of things to pack that will help me no end when I do the actual packing on Friday or Saturday, though. All hail the power of lists!

As I already hinted: it was wonderful at LonCon. That was not only my first WorldCon, but also my first convention ever, and I started full speed ahead - with a dealer's table and a one-hour presentation about medieval textile crafts (with examples from London).

I met a lot of wonderful people, and I had the joyful experience of having an hour and a half on the very first evening, giving my presentation. Thanks again to the wonderful organiser of the academic track, Emma England, who made this possible! From the feedback that I got afterwards, it was an enjoyable experience for my audience, and I had a lot of fun too. There was a bit of an "aaargh!" moment at the very beginning, when I found out that all of the six (six!) microphones on the table were live, and fretted over toppling them over with my textile tools. There were a few further "oops" moments during the presentation, when I did my tools and process demonstrations before having clicked on to the cue cards in the presentation slideshow... but all of these were very minor and more something to grin sheepishly about than to really be troubled.

Apart from that first evening of (enjoyable) work, I spent the time after 18:00 hanging out with friends in filk concerts and in the "Fan Village", or at one of the several dances. During the day, I was mostly at our table in the Dealer's Hall, and that was not any less enjoyable, thanks to lovely customers, colleagues and neighbours. Susanne, our trusty and immensely helpful sidekick, hung out with us most of the time, helping to sell and chat - it wouldn't have been possible to enjoy the Con half as much without her. In fact, we had so much fun we decided it would be nice to do this again - surely not at the next WorldCon, because that is in the US, but there are more conventions apart from that one...

I also learned (quickly, hah!) about the Thing with the ribbons. You see, for your con attendance, you get a plastic badge that you hang around your neck. And if you like, you can stick ribbons to the bottom of it, stacking them. If you are really keen on ribbons, you do that until you have a long, scarf-like tail of cloth hanging from your badge. (I just wanted a few. I ended up with eleven.) There were some official ones (such as the bright orange "Dealers" ribbon, or the light blue "Programme Participant" ribbon, or the multi-coloured "First Worldcon" ribbon) marked with the LonCon symbol. Most of them, though, were unofficial and made by fans, and with all kinds of statements on them - such as "I <3 -="" a="" advertising="" and="" back="" because="" bid="" book="" br="" bryan="" citations="" city="" convention.="" coveted="" dead="" did="" doctor="" dog="" during="" evening="" fetch="" few="" film="" for="" four="" future="" get="" go="" his="" host="" hotel="" i="" instantly="" kind="" last="" making="" manage="" me="" my="" of="" on="" one="" or="" out="" party="" really="" ribbons="" room="" s="" saw="" showing="" so="" support="" that="" the="" there="" thing="" three="" to="" totally="" very="" wanted="" was="" were="" worldcons.="">

The Con also saw the debut of the pattern for Dread Pirate Roberts' Favourite Winter Hat (ravelry pattern page link here), and it was very well received indeed!

The pattern is printed in colour, contains clear illustrated instructions for the special moves that are necessary for the lace part, and is now available via my webshop. Since I wanted to be able to sell it as a printed version, and prints do cost money, I am not planning to offer it as a download for at least a while (read: until the printing costs are, at least to a good part, regained). I know that it's nice to pay, download, and start right away if you buy an electronic pattern, but I did want very much to have the real ink-on-paper version for this one.

And as the introductory offer, you will pay no shipping costs if you order it now! The offer is valid until September 10, 2014.

We are nearing the end of the year, and before 2014 starts, I am widening my range of goods. You can now find more new things in my shop - linen bands.

Modern fabrics are usually woven to the standard width of about 140 or 150 cm. While this is not wider than some medieval fabrics were, and very practical to work with if you are tailoring something or trying to calculate your fabric needs for a specific garment, there are times when the standard width just won't cut the mustard.

Luckily, there are a few small companies left that have looms suitable for narrow wares. And while most of these produce modern-style patterned bands from cotton or viscose or other more modern materials, I have managed to find one that does pure linen weaves.

So now I can offer linen tape in 8 mm width, in bleached or unbleached,

as well as 3 and 5 cm wide tape.

There's a lot of uses I can imagine for bands like that - fixing fibre on a distaff, for example. The fabric has an even threadcount in warp and weft, so you can also use it as basis for late medieval counted-stitch embroidery, in case you are looking for clothing embellishment. (It's on the coarser side for medieval embroidery, though.) The 5 cm would also be a good width for a barbette, saving the need to hem a strip of cut cloth, with the added bulk at the edges that hemming brings.
 
And speaking of fabric for headwear:  In case you are looking for material for a veil or kerchief and would actually prefer to have the selvedge of the fabric along the long edges (both of them!) of your piece, here's something for you:






transparent headwear linen, woven to a width of 50 cm - which is wide enough, according to my own experience, for headwear pieces. It's really light and airy, amazingly so, and it saves you the hassle of having to hem at least one long edge.

The headwear linen is also available in a non-transparent version, with a weave density similar to that of the 3 and 5 cm wide bands. I'm offering all those pieces not per metre, but per 10 cm, so you can buy exactly the amount you need, no more, no less.

There's also a very small number of bronze pins, and it looks like the netting needles will be back in stock soon too. And in case you are a spinner and looking for some nice, non-merino top to spin, I have Coburg Fox sheep, German Eiderwolle and a naturally brown mixed German wool for you.

Finally, I have new spindle whorls coming in - here's a sneak preview picture:


If you want to see more of the shop (or buy some of the stuff, even), here's a friendly link to take you there. I hope you enjoy all these things as much as I do!

A good while ago, someone working with archaeological textile finds asked me if I had thicker linen yarn, two-ply, for re-creating a braid. It took me a long while to find a good source for them, but I was successful at last, and can now offer two-ply linen that is about one mm in diameter, in both white and naturally coloured. It's a soft, thick yarn that will lend itself not only to braiding, but may also be worth considering if you have a very coarse cloth and want a thick yarn to go with it, or if you are looking for a reinforcement thread.

I have not managed to take the shop photos of them yet, but the daring can already order the thread - they are online as of this morning.

I have tea (in a Disappearing Tardis mug, no less); breakfast; a sleeping cat beside me and a heap of work to do, including sending in abstracts.

I have also been spinning, testing out a spiral-shaped notch at the tip of a spindle stick as well as different ways of dressing a distaff with wool, since my old way (wrapping the top around the top of the distaff) does not work with Kathelyne's reconstructed spinning technique. Which I have used, and fallen totally and deeply in love with.

In non-spinning regard, I have not only hunted for pictures of medieval textiles, but also fiddled around with netting needles to find out what size of netting needle and what size of gauge stick would be necessary to make extremely fine mesh (as in one millimeter side length only - that is seriously tiny!). I have hunted for needles, and scissors, and shears, with results yet unknown. I have another hunting ground to explore, too - though I will need a tiny bit of preparation for that still. There was another go at trying to reconstruct a fillet as worn in the Codex Manesse (not finished yet, but you will get to see it once I am). There was the making of more tablet-weaving tablets, since I had run out; I am in the process of getting more spindle whorls (now looking much better than the old ones) as well as thicker linen two-ply yarn, about one millimeter in diameter and well suited to braiding, for example. I have taken photographs and updated the shop. And still managed to have a game night with friends!

So things have been crazy busy, and it's not looking like it will let up soon. So I will do what one does in these circumstances: have more tea, more coffee, and more chocolate. And settle down to work.