Please note: There was an issue with the direct link to the registration form provided in the CfP below. If you have tried to register and did not receive an e-mail with your registration data, please do register again - I have fixed the link so it works now. Thank you and sorry for any inconvenience!

As promised yesterday, I have spent the morning hours updating the Textile Forum website and re-making that form (have I ever mentioned that php forms are a godsend and a pain in the backside at the same time?) and it's finally, finally finished. It should all work now (and probably I'll be getting an email in about 10 minutes, telling me about something I totally overlooked when going through stuff and setting up the form...)

So, here for you, our Call for Papers:

The European Textile Forum in 2015 will again take place in the Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology in Mayen, Germany. This is the experimental archaeology research center of the Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum (RGZM). The date for the Forum is 2-8 November 2015.
We have been very happy with the combination of lectures and practical sessions, and we invite you to submit your proposal for a short lecture (about 20-40 minutes) followed by discussion and practical research regarding the textile techniques or problems presented in the lectures. The practical part can be in form of a workshop, a demonstration, or something like a "hands-on round table". Evenings are reserved for socialising and for more work on textile projects.
Our focus topic in 2015 will be "Non-Woven Textile Structures". This includes a large variety of textile techniques, such as knitting, braiding, nalebinding, felting or netting. We invite you to explore this topic together from all aspects, including but of course not limited to use of different tools or techniques to arrive at the same end product, differences of non-woven fabrics compared to woven fabrics, problems and possibilities of these techniques and their description or identification, and of course their use in everyday life.
As always, while papers or posters about our focus topic are especially welcome, if you have another topic outside this focus that you would like to present, please do submit your proposal. The same applies if you would like to offer a poster presentation or a workshop/demonstration only. For any questions, feel free to contact us directly.
With this Call for Papers, registration for the Textile Forum 2015 is now also open. Please be advised that there are very limited accommodation possibilities at the site: Due to the space available at the Experimental Archaeology Lab, we can accommodate about a dozen to fourteen participants on-site only, and the conference will accomodate only a few more participants than that altogether. Due to these restrictions, we may have to consider registrations with a presentation before those without.
The RGZM is graciously supporting the European Textile Forum by granting us use of the simple, mixed on-site dorms. If you prefer a room in a hotel or pension, you can of course book your own accommodation in Mayen; some more information can be found on the Travel and Accommodation page.
Full board consists of breakfast, lunch and dinner; water to drink as well as tea and coffee will be available at all times. All meals will be served in the Laboratory. The conference fee, including the sleeping possibility in the on-site dorm and full board during the week, is 320 Euro per person.
To register for the Forum with or without a poster or paper presentation, please submit your current area of research or interest as well as the title and abstract of your presentation, if applicable, by using this registration form. If you would like to give a paper longer than 40 minutes, please let us know about that and we will try to make it possible.
If you have questions or suggestions, you can contact us directly via Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein..
We are looking forward to a wonderful conference with you!

If you are on our newsletter, you will get the same in an e-mail as well - which I will send out later today. That's it from here for today! And for tomorrow, and Monday, since both days are a public holiday hereabout. I wish you a happy Spring Celebrating Festival, whatever it's called, and I hope you will have a few nice, sunny and relaxed days!

This morning, I was wondering what to do - should I try and do an April Fool post? There are others who are doing it so much better, though.

And then I thought that I'll just be normal and boring and do a totally normal post. Maybe about Textile Forum stuff. Maybe I could just announce the registration being open, and post a Call for Papers... that would be a nice blog post.

However, that means writing the CfP first, and getting the website up to date, and since I had to run some errands inbetween... it was obvious that I would not get it done until early afternoon. So I took a deep breath and thought to myself that since I have been blogging late quite often during the end phase of the Beast, you'll all be used to the occasional late one, and it should be fine if I post it by early afternoon.

It's the end of mid-afternoon now, and unfortunately the CfP is still not finished. Well, the CfP is finished, but I realised that with our newer concept of pairing up a paper with a practical session, I have to fix up the registration form to change it from a radio button set to checkboxes, and that would best be done by making an entirely new form to hopefully tackle some other issues, and that in turn might take another hour or two... so you are getting this blogpost instead, about how plans go kawumph in the afternoon when sudden realisations about the need for updates hit them hard.

Tomorrow, though. You shall have the CfP tomorrow.

It's early spring, and what better time of the year than to start planning for November? We have found a date for our next European Textile Forum, and we are hoping to finish plans this week far enough so we can send out the official Call for Papers and update our website. If you are on the mailing list, you'll get anote when we have done that. (If you are not yet on the list, but would like to be - go here to subscribe.)


I'll disclose our year's focus topic for you here right now, though. It will be "Nonwoven Textiles", which includes nalebinding, braiding, felting, netting and of course knitting. So we're excited to hear what papers and presentations will be offered as soon as the CfP will be out. If you are interested in attending and presenting, you could start thinking about something right away... while we'll be planning the actual thing.

Sabine and I are beyond delight that our crazy idea from back in 2008 has developed into a conference that is going strong, and we are looking forward to having another week with fellow textile researchers, crafters, conservators spent talking, thinking, reconstructing and researching. It's a good bit of work every year to plan and prepare that conference - but when that week comes, it is stuffed with wonder and learning, and every time we lean back and say that putting in that work? It is so, so much worth it!

I'm a little late for this announcement, but better late than never, right?

The Jewish Museum in Berlin has an exhibtion (running for about one more week, until March 1) called "Snip it - Stances on Ritual Circumcision".

That exhibition features a few manuscripts from the British Library with interesting scenes, and for those you don't need to go to Berlin, as they were shown on the BL blog.

And now I'll return to my wrangling of lists and pictures and things to do before this week runs out...

A while ago, I posted about an upcoming exhibition of early modern dresses in Nuremburg. I've since received an update about this - it will start in December 2015. You can read more about the exhibition here.

Also, it's time for me to bleg again...

Together with a colleague, Gillian, whom I met in Leeds, I've been working on a book about medieval England these past years. The book is going to give an overview about England from c 1050 to 1315. We have tried hard to write a book that gives enough detail for those readers who would like to use medieval England as a basis for their own projects - such as a medieval-based fantasy world, or writing a historical novel, or getting started with Living History.

We're now actually in the last stage - copyediting, getting the last few stray bits and pieces in line, and... illustrating it. We have the opportunity of putting pictures into the book, even colour pictures, which is just wonderful. The only drawback? Our deadline is approaching, fast. And we need to get the illustration done double-quick...

A while ago, I've already gotten a few gorgeous pictures for the book, but there are still quite a few topics that are not covered. We would love to have pictures that show actual live persons using good-quality replicas of stuff from England (or non-regional things), from the time-span 11th to very early 14th century. Daily life scenarios, craftspeople doing their work, children playing, any combination of things that actually existed and were used and people using them would be helpful, whether secular, religious, or military. Good pictures of just tools and maybe half-finished products would be very welcome as well.

So... if you have a photo, or several photos, that fit the bill and you would be happy with them being published, please send it to me at Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein.. And we will be ever so grateful for your help!

Happy new year, everybody! I hope you had a good time during the holidays.

Hereabouts cookies and Stollen and lots of lovely food have been consumed. Outside it has finally gotten wintery, with a bit of snow lying around, and even enough for a snowman and a snowball-fight with friends at one point. We hung out with friends and family, having a good time, relaxing, and playing a few games. And three days ago, I managed to catch the Monster Cold of Doom which knocked me out of action for a day and a half, and led to massive consumption of hot lemon with ginger. (In case you never tried that, it's a lovely winter drink, not only when you have a cold. Peel and cut up fresh ginger, pour boiling water over it, let sit for a while to brew, until the liquid is not too hot to drink anymore. Then add honey and lemon juice to taste - I use about a quarter lemon's worth per cup.)

Nevertheless, meanwhile, progress on the book has been made, and things are very close to a final now. Which is very, very good, since we hope to have it out very soon (which implies an utterly strict and very tight deadline). I'm sadly behind on a number of other things, though!

The new year, as was to be expected, is also bringing new conferences - and here are two calls for papers for you:

The Textielcommissie of the Netherlands is hosting a conference about bio-design in textiles on May 18.

The next CfP is from the EAA - Oral papers and posters are invited for the session ‘Quantitative and qualitative approaches to prehistoric warfare’ to be held at the 2015 Annual Meeting of the European Association of Archaeologists, Glasgow, 2-5 September 2015.

There will also be a textile session at the EAA, where the organisers would like to hear from people who have experience of teaching archaeological textiles at university level, particularly in relation to the following questions:

It's already November, and said month is already very well in progress - time to start thinking about preparation for a certain time next month. Yes, I'm hinting at Yule, or Christmas, or however you may call it.

Usually, by this time in the year, I am busy doing some baking already - which, this year, has not yet happened since I was busy with planning, and then running, the Textileforum. And now it will have to wait another week or so, since I will be busy preparing the last fair of this year: The "Kreativ".

This is a fair for all kinds of tools and materials you might need (or want) for your creative projects, and just as on the LonCon, I will be having a stall together with Margit from Alte Künste. The fair is running from November 20 to November 23 in the Messe Stuttgart, and you can find us at 1E34. I'm very excited to go there, and we are both looking forward to it. (Let's not speak of the flurry that both Margit and I are in, preparing for the show.)

To celebrate this state of mind with you, I have five free one-day tickets to give away. (You will get a code and will need to register online to receive the ticket proper.) If you would like to have one, tell me so in an email to katrin(at)pallia.net - the first five to mail me will get a code.

And then - see you in Stuttgart!