Botanica Yarnfest this weekend was a lot of fun, and I found out, once again, that I get quite, quite nervous before doing an online livestream demo thingie. It's worse than doing  a real-life demo somehow, even though there are no people present. Probably because there are no people present... there's just no feedback whatsoever, nobody sitting down and waiting for you to start, no room vibes to be read and acted upon. I find I actually prefer having a bunch of people look at me and being able to look back instead of having just that tiny little screen showing myself, so I can make sure I'm not running out of the picture.

Anyway, I did my demo, there were a few questions, I had some fun, and I did get some very nice feedback afterwards. I also managed to download the whole thing to my phone (which did the filming). It was not possible to re-post it to my own Instagram account, though; apparently that is only supported for videos up to 15 minutes, and mine is a bit over 30.

But there's youtube... so here you go, in case you'd like to see it: My demo of medieval spinning, with all the funny "big nose" camera effects that you get when you go close to the camera, and the weird portrait screen ratio helpfully provided by my phone.

The Early Textiles Study Group has opened their Call for Papers for the next conference, which is planned for Manchester on September 9-11. In case in-person is not possible, it will be held virtually.

The title is ‘Legacy: textile studies, the past informing the present’. The ETSG is thus looking for papers that explore any aspect of the legacies of the study of early textiles. Topics may include, but are not limited to:

• Pioneers in the study and reconstruction of early textiles,
• Collections, their histories and their futures,
• Fresh insights gained by applying new methodologies to old collections and archives.

The CfP is open until June 1st.



Definitely virtually, and taking place this Saturday, is the next EXARC textile chat. As usual, you can find it on their Discord server, and it will start at 15:00 CET. This month, the topic is embroidery.

I've actually managed not to blog about this yet?

The exhibition about experimental archaeology, for which I've also provided some things, has opened: "Experimental Archaeology" at the MAMUZ at Schloß Asparn/Zaya.

It is, of course, currently closed (hellooo lockdown!) but since it runs until November 2021, there should be time to see the exhibition it if you're planning to do so. I've been at the MAMUZ before, and it is definitely a lovely place to visit!

If you're interested in medieval gold threads, there's a zoom talk at/from Yale University on Friday, April 2:

Department of the History of Art, Yale University, Medieval-Renaissance Forum: Gold on the Move. The Mongol Impact on 13th and 14th century Asian and Mediterranean Textiles.

It's at 12:00 pm Yale time, and if I did my time conversion correctly, that corresponds to 18:00 h German time. Which is a very reasonable time to listen to a talk!

These are crazy times. Crazy, with a capital C, or maybe with all capital letters. But anyway, even though it's all crazy, and even though we don't know how things will develop from now onwards (at least not in the medium run, it's pretty clear what will happen here in Germany in the next two or three weeks), a bit of optimism might be what we all need.

So. I'm very, very excited to announce that we will try to have a European Textile Forum this year! If all goes well enough, we will meet in Tilff-Méry, Belgium, from August 9 to August 15.

Our focus topic this year will be "Sticks and Stones May Make a Loom", and we will explore weaving techniques and possibilities on "primitive" looms during the Forum week.



If you're a weaver, or a researcher, and that sounds interesting for you, you can find out more about it on textileforum.org, where there's the Call for Papers and the registration form online now.

I'm very happy to have something online again to look forward to - I'll be part of the Botanica Yarnfest this year! It is an online event taking place on Instagram, with a lot of demonstrations by yarn and fibre people from all over.

The website is already up and running, and I've handed in my info, so I'll be listed there soon, too:


I will be doing a demonstration of medieval-style spinning on Sunday. That will be exciting - and fun!

It's a little short notice, but better late than never: There will be a conference online about prehistoric textiles next week, on February 24 and 25. There will be talks in German and English; topics range from textile imprints on pots to the fabrication of early textiles from bast and other materials - you can see the whole programme here, and register in the same place in case you want to attend the conference.

It sounds really interesting even though it's way out of my usual time zone!