It turned out that in spite of the payment thingie always giving me the virtual finger (as in "your payment didn't come through"), the very first try actually had already succeeded. The next tries, though, didn't - partly due to my spending limit on the credit card which is ridiculously low on purpose, partly due to a security warning at the card issuing center. And I must say that even though I was a bit miffed at how paying didn't work as smoothly as I was used to, I'm happy to know that there is somebody watching over the card transactions and taking a closer look if something seems to be out of control.

So now it seems to be all cleared up, I'm booked for the conference, I booked a flight already as well, and I can go to Leeds. Hooray! Now I only need to figure out what to attend there out of the gazillions of different sessions, papers, and special evening events. I'll probably feel utterly lost at such a huge conference - by far the largest one I'll ever have been to.

The weekend is approaching again, and I have like a billion little things that I need to take care of before it is here - like sending off the paper version registration for the Leeds conference.

It turned out that my inability to register and pay with my credit card (or debit card, since that didn't work as well) must be due to some glitch in the general system that makes payment procedures seemingly uncompatible with my issue type of cards. Which is totally weird since I have used that card(s) for paying in the rest of the world (including England) before. However, all is well that ends well: I found out why it doesn't work, I will still get to register and pay by bank transfer, which should really work (keeping my fingers crossed),  Update: No, I'm still wrestling with the system. They did charge my credit card after all... and now I'm sending this blog post off come what may. I'll tell you how it all worked out on Monday (I hope)...

We all know that The InternetsTM are a non-safe place, so I try to be as safe as possible. That includes the use of Firefox with the NoScript add-on, regular updates to safety-relevant programmes, and so on.

So I'm all for security. Unless... well, unless said extra secure methods keep me from actually paying for something over the Internet. Which is how I spent my morning (and which is why I am only blogging now, not two and a half hours ago as I had planned). I have succumbed to the lure of Leeds and now have been trying to register using the online form... and what can I say? It could be a little more user-friendly, maybe, as in not giving me a time-out that requires me to fill in all the forms again. Or a second time-out. Or forget everything already filled in when I log out. Or actually transmit my card data to my card issuer so that they can authorise the payment. Gah.

It does take a bit of stuff to get me pissed off, but I'm actually a little more than moderately pissed right now. Booking for a conference (or a flight, or whatever) is something that always sort of racks my nerves, so I like to have it run smoothly, not need to try it a gazillion times without success.

Well. I mailed the conference team with my woes, and I hope that it will get solved soon. Anyways (and if I have to mail in the .pdf and pay the extra process fee they charge for not using the online-booking system), I will go to Leeds Congress. Anyone else coming?

Firstly, for all those of you who are planning to put in a visit to the V&A before they close down the textile study room, a heads-up: I have been sent additional information by two friends who went there and found that, without any further notice, the staff closed the study room at noon.

So they recommend that

any colleagues intending to make a special visit to the collection are *strongly* advised to contact the museum first to check that the room is likely to be open : they probably won't give any promises, citing the usual weasle phrase "lack of resources", but pointing out that the room will soon be closed anyway might help.

So please phone ahead if going to the V&A to save you a disappointment.

Secondly, there are more conferences coming up: The Braid Society meeting in 2012 and the Leeds Congress 11-14th of July 2011. I have made the mistake of looking at the preliminary programme up on the website, and now I'm totally lusting to go there. If only beaming were invented already!

Thirdly, I spent part of the weekend having a load of fun with the new "in" sports discipline, Extreme Hedgehog Wrestling. Here's photo proof of it:


And this is the hedgehog in rest:



The thing lying around on the table in addition to the needles and yarn is a count-down d20* that I use for counting knitting rounds. (For those of you not enlightened by roleplaying friends sharing their dice and knowledge, countdown dice have the numbers arranged so you can easily find the next one in sequence - as opposed to normal dice where you have to hunt for the next number.)



It's a pattern that was published in Knitty a while ago**, and contrary to my usual approach, I actually did not change anything when knitting it. Well, except using dpns instead of the recommended two circs, and messing with the needle size : yarn thickness ratio to get the correct gauge. (Hint: My needles are, to a normal knitter's mind, way too small for the yarn.) After I broke one needle tip during the wrestling session start, I sort of tried to err on the side of caution in regards to the number of needles (and therefor reduced stress on the individual needle).Hedgehog Wrestling then is the natural side effect of this.

* A 20-sided die. Which is plenty for most knitting purposes and a very standard type for a lot of roleplaying games.
** I won't tell you what it is yet, because it's intended as a gift, and you never know who reads this blog. I'll show the finished thing once it's been received, though.

Via the MEDTC-List, I received this info about K'zoo:

Forty-sixth International Congress on Medieval Studies
May 12–15, 2011
Western Michigan University
Kalamazoo, Michigan USA
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/congress/

A 'preview' of the program is available here
http://www.wmich.edu/medieval/Assets/pdf/congress/Schedule11.pdf

I had a look at that programme. Oh my goodness. How on earth are you supposed to choose which sessions or papers to attend? That conference programme has a freaking two hundred and ten pages! This really, really boggles my mind, which is used to small or medium conferences only. Must be really nice to have such an enormous group of medievalists all together in one spot! (Though I still think it must be awfully hard to choose what to listen to...)


For those of you interested in textile stuff, I will just repost the list of of-interest-sessions that also came via the list. I had planned to go through the pdf myself and list the page numbers with the textile-related sessions, but I'm afraid I will get lost in that document and never find my way out again. Do I need to say that I would love to hear those papers? Alas, K'zoo is far away...

Thursday 7:30 p.m. Session 157 (Schneider 1280)
Vair, Able, Phoenix, and Kitty-Cat: Desire and Reality in Medieval Fur Fashions
Sarah-Grace Heller, Ohio State Univ.

Friday 1:30 p.m.Session 243 )Fetzer 1010)
Dress and Textiles I: Documentary Evidence
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and
Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Organizer: Robin Netherton, DISTAFF
Presider: Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Univ. of Manchester
Textiles and Dress in the Household Accounts and
Inventories of Lady Margaret Beaufort (1443–1509)
Susan Powell, Univ. of Salford
Histoires and Misteres: Understanding Medieval Tapestry
Tina Kane, Tina Kane Textile Conservation and Restoration
“Translating” a Queen: The Wardrobe of Margaret Tudor, Queen of Scots
Michelle Beer, Univ. of Illinois–Urbana-Champaign
Juana of Portugal’s Farthingale: Rumors of Scandal and Shame
Emma Lehman, Independent Scholar

Friday 3:30 p.m.Session 301 (Fetzer 1010)
Dress and Textiles II: Implications and Interpretations
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and
Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Organizer: Robin Netherton, DISTAFF
Presider: Robin Netherton
Lanval’s Lady: An Uncovering
Monica L. Wright, Univ. of Louisiana–Lafayette
Cosmographic Coverings: Textile Language in Alan of Lille’s Plaint of Nature
Jonathan Abresch, Univ. of Toronto
Late Medieval (Chiefly Middle English) Attitudes towards Dagged Clothing
John Block Friedman, Independent Scholar
To Be or Not to Be Medieval: Costuming Maid Marian for Film and Television
Sherron Lux, Library, San Jacinto College–North Campus

Friday 5:45 p.m. Fetzer 1055 Medieval
Dress/Textile Arts Display and Demonstration
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and
Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Organizer: Robin Netherton, DISTAFF
Presider: Robin Netherton
A display of reproduction textile and dress
items, handmade using medieval methods and materials. Items
will include textiles, decorative treatments,
garments, and dress accessories. Exhibitors will
demonstrate techniques and be available to
discuss the use of historical evidence in
reproducing artifacts of material culture.

Sunday 8:30 a.m.Session 523 (Fetzer 1005)
Recycling Clothing in Late Medieval Paris
Kathryn J. Kelsey Staples, West Virginia Univ.

Sunday 8:30 a.m.Session 543 (Bernhard 210)
Dress and Textiles III: Techniques
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and
Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion)
Organizer: Robin Netherton, DISTAFF
Presider: Robin Netherton
Loopy Clues: Unraveling Errors, Omissions, and Assumptions in Loop Braiding
Instructions
Cindy Myers, Independent Scholar
Early Knitting Techniques and Tools: Clues from Extant Middle Eastern Socks
Jackie Oppelt, Independent Scholar
Cornettes: Variation and Change in a Fourteenth-Century Hairstyle
Barbara Segal, Independent Scholar

Sunday 10:30 a.m. Session 576 (Bernhard 210)
Dress and Textiles IV: Armour, Dress, Textile
Sponsor: DISTAFF (Discussion, Interpretation, and
Study of Textile Arts, Fabrics, and Fashion) and
the Brill Encyclopaedia of Medieval Dress and
Textiles of the British Isles, c. 450-1450
Organizer: Gale R. Owen-Crocker, Univ. of Manchester
Presider: Julian Deahl, Brill Publishing Company
What’s In a Name? Identifying Textiles
Gale R. Owen-Crocker
Textiles and Thomas Becket
Elizabeth Coatsworth, Manchester Metropolitan Univ.
What’s the Pourpoint?
Karen Watts, Royal Armouries
Padded Protection: The Rothwell Jack
Maria Hayward, Univ. of Southampton

It's already been a week since I came back from the OEGUF conference, and I haven't even posted a picture of it yet. So... here's photographic proof that:


... I had something to say (this is me and Karina delivering a commentary to a short film showing different methods of preparing wool for spinning)...


... I went on the excursion to Schwarzenbach to see, among other things like the museum and the "Keltenfest" area, a flock of Racka sheep...


... and a most beautiful sunset...



... and also to the excursion to Asparn an der Zaya...



... and I did engage in Photo Wars with quite a few people.

 


Special thanks to Wulf Hein for the first photo and the shoot of myself in the Photo Wars!

I'm back home with the slight residue of a cold I caught somewhere during the last two weeks (fortunately it was a light one), a brain full of new information, project development for the winter season already started (it was a long drive home, with plenty of time to plan together with Sabine), and - as usual - a nice backlog of work and stuff to be taken care of.

The OEGUF conference was wonderful, though it had a few minor drawbacks: Our room was getting quite stuffy quite soon, there was no conference coffee point (which seriously cut back on the usual coffee socialising), and that in connection with short breaks due to the programme being stuffed very, very full, there was just not enough time to catch everybody I wanted to catch to chat or comment or discuss with. But apart from that, there was lots of laughter, oodles of fun, and a very large amount of presentations that were brand-sparkling new (at least to me) and of a very high quality - archaeologists and craftspeople alike meticulously looking at tiny details and working out things about bell beaker making, salt mining, and music instruments, to name three topics among many. The spinning experiment presentation was very well received too, and I did get quite a few comments about it, including one from a skilled statistician who offered to also take a look at the database and see if he might be able to see something in addition or something different from what I found when staring at all those numbers.

I met with some folks that I had not seen for a longer or shorter time, and it was wonderful to reconnect and see them again; and I also have some new acquaintances among the colleagues. There were two excursions, and during one of them I had the opportunity to make contact with the caretaker of a herd of museum sheep, a special old Hungarian breed - wonderful wool for historical spinning, and amazingly well suited to dye them coptic black, since the wool is already almost black. With all these things together and stuffed into a few days only, it's no wonder that my brain sort of ran on stand-by on Monday and still during part of yesterday, also an indicator that it was a good conference.

Socialising, learning about stuff, getting new and weird ideas, and carrying home material for textile works - have I mentioned already that I love conferences?