Years ago, we got a "Dampfente" - which is a small hand-held steam cleaner that has, more or less, the shape of a duck. It's not large, and it has been used occasionally through the years, mostly related somehow with textile work.

For instance, I used it to set the twist in spun yarns when I was pressed on time; steam once, let cool and dry off (which will not take as long as letting a thoroughly wetted skein dry out) and then repeat the process. Voilà, almost instantly dead yarns. 

An added benefit of that process was that I realised how much movement and wiggling happens when the twist is set. There was a lot of wiggling of the threads, even though they were all stretched on a skein winder.

From the past tense used in this past text, you can probably guess that at one point, the little duck broke down. It would still heat up, the pump would still try to do its work (audibly, but not horribly so), but no steam was coming out.

Yesterday I finally took out a screwdriver and some ambition and took the whole thing apart. I got joined in my duck dissection by The Most Patient Husband of Them All in the evening, and using four hands (which is very much to recommend, since the hot parts have to be kept away from the possibly-melting parts, and the water from things that should keep dry, and you have to test all the stuff somehow) we found the culprit: The filter was clogged.

I had expected some limescale issue to be the cause, but no, there was nothing. Instead it looked like enough fine fibres and dust particles had accumulated in the fine filter mesh to stop water from coming through. Filter cleaned, set back in, then a longish session trying to fit everything back inside into its proper place and screw the thing shut again. 

The fibres in the filter probably came from not cleaning the little can that was provided to fill the duck with water well enough before using it - so fibres and dust from the bottom of the little water can got into the tank, and from there into the filter, and there you go. Clogging, after a while. Which means in the future the water can will get cleaned before use (with normal water) and just to prevent any chalk issues, distilled water will be used.

I'm very pleased now - both that it functions again (it will come in handy at the Textile Forum, I'm sure) and that it was possible to repair it!

Social media is, if you ask me, both a blessing and a curse. It's a wonderful way to keep in contact with others, or to get into contact and discover new people and new things or possibilities. However, it also has a tendency to eat up inordinate amounts of time.

It also has a tendency, or an inherent danger, to foster unrealistic expectations. That came up a while ago in a chat with a friend and colleague, who told me about another colleague being the aim of harsh criticism regarding the look of her hands - which she had happened to post on social media.

Years ago, I remember seeing a gold ring for offer on etsy. The artisan himself had taken the photographs, and one of the images showed him holding the (very well-made, really beautiful) ring. Now... goldsmiths are metalworkers. Metalworking is not a job that has a reputation for being kind on your hands, or skin. The photo, consequently, showed a worker's hand, and you could see a bit of grime and a lot of abrasion and the nicks and cuts and scars that years of working metal had left.

To me, that was a very impressive picture, and beautiful in its own way, as it showed both the product and the most important tool to make it. The hand was not "pretty" or "beautiful" in the sense of someone being a hand model, but to me, the contrast between the shiny clean ring and the battered hand also made it clear that this piece was hard work to make, and had a cost beyond the materials and the time invested.

Someone of the potential customers actually complained about the "ugly" picture, and that it would be offensive to post dirty, ugly hands like that. To which the artisan replied that these are his hands, they look ugly like this because that's the cost of making beautiful things, and she's welcome to do her shopping elsewhere. (Or something roughly along these lines. It's been a long time ago.)

My own hands also tend to look a little battered. This is normally nothing that I much care about - unless it's something that gets in my way when working, such as exceptionally rough skin that silks will snag on, or something that causes pain. Other traces? My hands are tools, and tools will sport traces of their use after a while, even if used correctly and treated properly and with care. When they do so, to me, they have their own very special kind of beauty, So, to me, have a dyer's hands stained bright blue or red, or a shoemaker's hands with its calluses and short nails, or a goldsmith's hands with calluses and scars and metal dust caught in the cracks of skin.

If you ask me, hands that bear the traces of work should never be something to be ashamed of. On the contrary! 

Just when you really don't need it - though when do you? there's computer troubles.

Yesterday afternoon, my email programme crashed and complained about a faulty database... and the HDD that said database resides on started making noises. Now... any noise coming from an HDD that is usually quite quiet definitely falls under "that is not a good sound".

And indeed it wasn't. I did try repairing the drive (no luck), scanning and recovering data (also no luck, the programme crashed while trying to recover things, and probably that happened because of Final Death of the drive), and a few other options - all to no avail.

A replacement drive was ordered at night, and then I can do a last try to get the data on the drive. And now, I guess, I will find out how well my backup solution has worked...

I'm on Summer Break until August 7 - I'll be checking emails infrequently, and both the blog and the shop are on pause until the end of the break. (You can order things, of course, but they will be sent out only after the break.)

There will be online workshops again after the break, too - an English and a German sewing workshop, and a German spinning workshop are already bookable in the shop.

Have a lovely, happy summer, and see you after the break!

Soon it will be time for my summer break. Very, very soon - actually it will start at the end of this week already, and I'm looking forward to that very, very much.

As usual, my break will be a mix of time for relaxing, going on holidays, and taking care of things that get left behind during normal work times. There's some website work to be done, for instance. (Yes, again. It's a neverending source of work.) Some garden work. Some projects that are lined up but have not happened yet, and hopefully there will be time for them, too. Putting the shop and blog on hold for a few weeks takes out quite a bit of time-eating elements, and allows me to take a bit of a breather... and also to do some more stock-taking and, if necessary, re-stocking.

So since there will be blog silence for a bit from the end of this week: If you have anything you'd like me to blog about tomorrow or Friday - let me know! 

It's time for some links again - here you go:

Alex Makin has new things up on her blog about (mostly) Early Medieval Textiles. This time, the textiles are (mostly) a bit later - Milena Bravermanová, Helena Březinová and Jana Bureš Víchová present textiles found in the tomb of St Wenceslaus in Prague Castle. Do check them out - they are fabulous fabrics!

If you're into Medieval cookery, you might want to check out this recipe book in the OpenLibrary - it's the edition and translation of a late medieval recipe book from Naples, dated to the end of the 15th century.

If you're up for a fight, or maybe just up for reading about military mobility equipment, there's a nice article about chariots and related wagon-like things here.

Prefer more friendly things? There's an investigation into fragmented ring ornaments used in the 4th millenium BC in Finland, which may have been something resembling "friendship pendants" - rings that were made, then intentionally broken and used or worn by two people. The article is open access.

I hope there's something for you in that selection!

We are, as you might know, cyclists. Erlangen is a place where there's a lot of cycling going on, and in most cases, it's the quickest way to get from A to B within the city (just like in so, so many places). You can park right where you want to go and don't have to find a parking space, get the ticket, put it into the car, and then walk to wherever you planned to be.

Apart from that, it's healthy (at least healthier than sitting in a car), more quiet, and more sustainable. Also it's fun, especially with a nice bike that is easy to ride.

If we are going somewhere together, we're taking the tandem, if it's at all possible. We've also spent a few holidays on the bike... so it has seen a few replacements over the years, pieces that were worn out, pieces that got upgraded, pieces that broke.

The latest piece that broke? The flange on our rear wheel hub. On one trip, we heard a "ping" sound like when a spoke breaks - and yes, two spokes were loose. But not because they themselves had broken. A part of the flange had taken exception to staying with us and went its merry way somewhere into the bushes.

Fortunately, it was still possible to use the bike, though with a bit of caution. And last Friday, the replacement wheel arrived. We now have a shiny new wheel, and the Most Patient Husband of Them All also replaced the chains, and there's a new sprocket cassette, and now the whole thing is running like new again. Plus the freewheel of the new wheel is really, really quiet - in fact, you can only hear it in some instances, and the sounds of the chains running when we pedal are actually louder than the freewheel sound. 

The last hub lasted about 33.000 kilometers. So now we can work on wearing the new one out...