"Know yourself" is, I'd say, a rather sensible piece of advice - after all, it's not a bad idea to know approximately what one likes or dislikes, and how one normally reacts, and so on. 

However, it looks as if trying to explore one's self in order to get to know it better does not necessarily improve self-knowledge. Or so this study found out - and if you're intrigued now, you can go read it, as it's open access.

"1 qm Lein" is the German and Austrian version of a Swedish project to keep knowledge about growing and processing flax alive - and to build a community around this at the same time. 

The project "1 qm Lein" provides you with flax seed for one square metre, plus instructions on how to grow and later harvest the plants. And then the plan is for participants to meet up and process their harvest together - with the result being a hand-woven band or something else. (1 square metre will not be enough for a shirt, even though "shirt" is mentioned in the teaser texts. That's explained in the FAQ section. A shirt would take about 10-15 sqm, approximately.)

If that sounds like a project for you, you can find out more via the website https://1qmlein.de/ and also  join in there, either as a single grower, or as a regional partner. There's also a map there, with quite a few museums, gardens and other groups. The project is open to register as participant until November 3 - after that, the packages will be packed and sent out.

Today was more or less split up between stitching loops to the dyed fabric swatches and doing some maintenance, tidying up, labeling of photos and planning for the next events - a sewing workshop for a group centering around the time of 1000, for instance, and of course the European Textile Forum (aka my Week of Madness). 

All that fortified by some lovely tea. And though it's been fun to work on all of these things, I'm quite happy that the weekend is now very near, and looking forward to it! Though I might even try to finish stitching the loops today. I can tell you, those colours are lovely, and it's really nice to see how similar colours from different plants can come out and how different from the same plant. Also always high on my list: the direct comparison between posh black and cheap black. You can really feel the difference in the fabric, not just see it, as the iron does diminish the shine of the wool and makes it feel... "stumpf" you'd say in German, which would be blunt if talking about a knife, but "dull" would probably match the meaning range best here. Not as nice as the wool dyed with more fibre-friendly stuff, in any case!

I'm already looking forward so much to hanging this in the exhibition. A wall full of brightly coloured wool swatches, it will look so impressive!

I have another lovely job in relation to the upcoming exhibition in Bamberg: Prepping the Rainbow. 

I have a stack of beautifully dyed fabric swatches here, and since they are to be attached to rods in the exhibition, I will get to snuggle a little bit with each of them while attaching loops for hanging them.

Rainbow, here I come! 

 Once in a while, the Most Patient Husband Of Them All stumbles across something amusing, and then he shares it with me (so we can both be amused). Like the fact that there's a fish that has three fins on which it can stand on the (deep sea) ocean floor: The Tripod Fish. You can also read more about it (and see a nice picture) on the Australian Geographic website.

Here's a bit more of a sneak peek on Archäologie am Berg, just in case you'd like to have a look:

 It's Monday, and - as things go - this day tends to have all the leftover things from the previous week on its list, plus all the ideas from the weekend, plus all the Monday-typical stuff as well. So it's a small wonder not everything got done... but at least a fair chunk of stuff happened. There's packages ready to be sent off, some organisatorial things taken care of, and some paperwork wrestled down. 

And hopefully tomorrow will be just as successful, if not better. (Better is always... well... better.) There's some writing stuff that I'd like to finally finish - but there's also some wheel spinning to be done with the Great Wheel, to make sure it will run smoothly on its outing the coming weekend.

For you, meanwhile, an image of the mermaid in Warsaw: