It's a holiday today, so you get this picture of a sleepy cat: 

Advertisement is an art unto itself - you want to be visible, and you want people to hear about your things, but you don't want to get on their nerves too much. (At least I don't, as I feel annoyed sometimes by too much explanations of how good something is... and I don't want to be that seller.)

Ads can be an art themselves, too, and especially older ads are quite interesting to look at. They do reflect the time they were made in, and sometimes they look weird and funny to our eyes, with different backgrounds and different lifestyles. And, in some cases, a bit more knowledge about what might be a good idea and what might not be one. (Radioactive potions, anyone?)

In case you, like me, enjoy looking at old ads once in a while, the Internet Archive has you covered. Here's their selection of advertising art from magazines. Enjoy! 

Even though this was a sort-of-shortened week, I'm feeling more than ready for the weekend... which will include some work as well, as there's some membrane thread work scheduled to happen. 

Before I go to have a coffee and a little break, though, here's a few more pictures for you, from the recent trip to Lisboa (more or less):

Today was a day where I tried to finally take care of a stack of small tasks, some of which had already been on the to-do-list for a good while, and some that had just come up quite recently. It feels nice, somehow, to do those maintenance tasks! Some of it was writing mails, some was sorting through files, some was trying to figure out new software. There's been a change in my newsletter thingie not-so-recently, and I was looking to acquaint myself with some of the features of the new version, but when it was time to send the last few newsletters... well, I didn't get around to do it. Today, I finally managed to sit down with it and we had some quality time, so to say. 

Now I think I might test it with the current newsletter - and if it works well, I will switch over to the new version. Hopefully it will! 

Apart from all this, there's also been some conference preparation and pre-packing prep today. I'll be off to a EuroWeb workshop on Tuesday, where I will be meeting a number of my lovely colleagues for discussions about making, wearing, and displaying textiles and the body. I will also try very hard to stay within the 15 minutes timeslot for my presentation - talking (shortly) about subtle movements in crafts, especially in relation to teaching things. It's a fascinating topic for this meeting, and I am so much looking forward to it.

My going there, however, means that you'll be treated, again, to a few days of blog silence while I am off. Starting on Monday, as that is a public holiday - I'll be back on the blog on Wednesday, May 10. I hope you'll be able to enjoy a few lovely spring days until then, too!

In the last years, I had the pleasure of doing demonstrations and having museum cooperations that involved quite a bit of travel. There was work to be done in Brandenburg, Lübeck, Emden, Berlin, just to name a few of them. It's lovely to travel there, get to see those places, meet the people and (important part of any travelling I do) sample the local delicacies. 

I'm just as delighted, though, to have a museum cooperation just in front of my own doorstep for a change, though. 

So I am very happy to share with you the  news about an exhibition coming up in my local museum, the Stadtmuseum Erlangen:

I will be doing demonstrations of early textile techniques on the vernissage of the exhibition on May 21, starting after the official opening. There will be additional demonstrations on September 10 and on October 22, starting at 14:00 - plus one for the "Long Night of Science" on October 21, starting at 20:00.

I'm very, very much looking forward to this already. Almost no travel time! (There might still be sampling of the local delicacies, though. I will take any excuse for having delicious food of both the sweet and the savoury type... and Erlangen does offer nice specimens of both. Bonus: No exploring and luck necessary, I already know places to go to for the good stuff!)

Somehow time's always too short to get all the things done. Case in point? One of the many, that is? 

I've had a revamp of the distaff spinning kit in the pipeline for a while, and there has actually been progress, but it's not completely finished. One of the reasons for that is the Most Patient Husband of Them All, who did a proofreading stint of the draft and had a few very sensible comments... one of them being about the unequal lenght of the pieces of combed top on the distaff band in the dressing instructions photos.

So "new photos" got on the list... and they have happened this week, so one step further along. 

Since I wrote the last distaff dressing instructions, I've changed my process a little, and it now includes unfolding the top.

Most of the pieces of combed top you can get commercially produced are a rather solid, thick band of fibres. However, there's usually something like a seam in the middle of it on one side, and it can be unfolded, leaving you with a wide, thin band of wool - something that is nice to use for dressing the distaff, and unfolding the top also helps in loosening up the fibres a little where they were compressed due to storage of the top. It works well, too, with just the folded tops, but I think it's even better when taking this extra step.

It's fascinating, by the way, to look back occasionally and see how different processes evolved over time - sometimes by chance, sometimes due to some problems, sometimes due to a change in materials, or getting more familiar with a certain material or preparation. 

Here's some stuff for the Germans among you (or those happy to travel and having some German...)

First, another weaving workshop in Krefeld, run by Barbara Thomas, who will teach about early composite fabrics. The workshop will be October 16-20, and you can find more information about it here. 

Second: There's an exhibition about Pestilence and Cholera in the Staatsbibliothek Bamberg - it's opening on Sunday, April 23. The topic? Plagues and how they were handled in the Early Modern Age. "Pest und Cholera" will run until July 2023.

And now I'll get back to my current project - finding evidence about how turning up in just your undergarments was regarded in the Middle Ages...