My colleague and friend Berit died, after a sudden illness, on September 20. She was delightfully enthusiastic, always excited to learn new things, and more than happy to pass that excitement and enthusiasm on to others. I will miss her sorely, as a friend, as a wonderful colleague, as a sister in scheming things textile to do, and as a companion for having that celebratory cake and coffee after a conference we attended together. There's an obituary linked to on this site from her uni.

I still cannot believe it. We had plans to do things together, and I had plans to visit her when I'd be up north next, and now she's just... gone. Go give your loved ones a hug, and your friends a call. Life is fragile, and there is no guarantee you'll have them next year. 

If you have a textile find, it's sometimes possible to extract the dyestuff used for dyeing it. The instruments and technique have been refined more and more over the last decade or two, but there's still a problem: Knowing which dyestuff combination comes from which plant. 

A lot of things will dye some kind of yellow, so if you have yellow, it doesn't mean you know which plant it was. In analysis reports, this can then turn up as "yellow x". There's a similar issue with red, where it's not always known what was the origin of a red dye that was detected.

The Danish National Museum is now going on a citizen science quest to try and find those elusive colour suppliers, and they are looking for dyers willing to collect, document, and send in their dye sample. The project runs until October 2027, which is when all samples should have arrived in Denmark.

If you are interested and would like to know more, you can find it here on the museum's website. 

Things happening here? 

First important action of the day was going with the little cat for a vet checkup. We'll get the results of the blood check once the vet has them, and hopefully they will be okay. Renal values were a little worse last time than before, and we hope it has stabilised. We're also to give her eye drops now twice daily to prevent more issues with her eye deteriorating. She's blind already, or practically blind (it's hard to tell, we are not getting good answers on the "where does the mouse tail point on this board if you look here" questions) but I have learned today that there can also be troublesome changes inside the eye, and these need to be watched out for. The things you learn.

Also there's work going on for a workshop that I will give in October, apart from the ongoing "make clothes for Oswald". The hood is done, though I want to do a few more try-on tests to see if it fits our interpretation; the cloak is also almost done and needs a few more centimetres of seam and then the button closure. So the parts left are the hose and the tunic/pourpoint, which means I'll soon run out of the easy things and have to tackle the interesting bits. 

The figure itself then has to be dressed at some point, which will be rather interesting, as he is heavy and, of course, not as flexible and especially not as cooperative as a human being.

Most photos from the trip have been sorted by now, and I have also started sorting out a programme for the Textile Forum. There's one more workshop to prepare for right after the Forum, which means everything should be all done, dusted, and packed up when I leave for the Week of Madness. 

I'm back home from a lovely trip, and I did get to see a lot of medieval fabrics. I went with a friend to Halberstadt (to see the birds on fabrics exhibition), to visit Quedlinburg, and we had a look at things in Magdeburg as well. Last minute I decided to take the camera,  and the extra weight was well worth it - I have a nice bunch of lovely photos of things now.

Because I was running out of time, I did not take photos in Magdeburg Cathedral, which I somehow regret a little now - but then that's maybe an excuse to return some day.

We did manage, however, to get a very nice close look at some knotted fringes in preparation for the Textile Forum, so I would count the whole trip as a full success.

I'm off for a little study trip with a friend, so there will be no blogging during the next week! 

The exhibition in Halberstadt is beckoning,  and I will be following the call. We'll be having a look at some other textiles here and there, while we're in the area, so I will be back on the blog on Monday, September 28.

To my very great delight, the fig bush (tree would be rather generous) in front of our garage wall is actually bearing a good number of figs this year, and they (the late batch) are currently ripening - at least some of them. Now I only have to hold out long enough for the individual ones to really, fully, properly ripen... I've managed to pluck a few already that would have benefitted from a day or three longer on the branch. But, well, figs!

Also good, though I'm still not holding my breath: Apparently there is a German request for the EU to change regulations for the PPWR, including a moratorium on the authorised representative and Europe-wide thresholds for the small players. I am hoping this will go through, and we will finally have a sensible regulation. (Maybe some of the politicians have found out that some of their own preferred stuff is not coming anymore? Who knows. And actually, I don't really care why, as long as they arrive at a sensible solution!)

To my great delight (and relief), the Textile Forum 2026 is now coming together very nicely. I have a few unconfirmed things in the pipeline still, but I am hopeful that they will end up on the menu, too.

So far, we will be looking at heddle variations (with knots, that being our main topic); textile finishings; making passementerie-type items (and freehand! I am so looking forward to this!); going to have a try at doing ikat dyeing, and I am hoping that things will work out in a way here that I will be able to do a little workshop on filet netting. That is a lovely technique that I like very much, but it's also notoriously awkward to teach. The good news on it is that because there is one single knot that is repeated over and over and over, you only have to learn that one knot. The bad news is that it consists of a series of movements that have to be done exactly right, or the knot will not form properly, and you have to do the full series of movements, there's no good way to break it down into baby steps. So I have kind of a love-hate-relationship for teaching this (with the love prevailing, admittedly).

If you're curious (or if you want to join in), registration is open on the website of the Forum, textileforum.org, and there's also some space left for presentations or workshops!