There's a new exhibition on at the University of Manchester Library, called "The Alchemy of Colour". It will be running into August, and it does look very fascinating - it's a pity I won't be able to make it, but if you are in the area and interested in colours, it might be worth a visit.

There will be a conference in Munich, at the Bayerisches Nationalmuseum, about Structuring Fashion -Foundation Garments Throughout History. Obviously, the emphasis is on early modern and modern history, but Beatrix Nutz will be talking abou medieval formative underwear as well. The conference takes place September 13 and 14, with additional offers for the 15th and 16th if you have the time. You can find more info and the registration link behind the link.

 
 

As one of the programme points during the Textile Forum, we went on an excursion to see the special exhibition "Expedition Mittelalter" at the Schnütgen-Museum in Cologne. If you can arrange it, I heartily recommend going there, as you will get treated to a lot of beautiful things usually buried in the archives. This includes, obviously, textiles.

Among them: a puzzling (at least to me!) embroidery of a horse or unicorn on a black (yes, black) linen background, dated to the 15th century. An incredibly beautiful reliquiary bag embroidered with silk in counted stitch and with a flat gold strip (also puzzling, because I have no real idea on how that strip was stitched in, and oh what would I give to see the back of that thing!). Plus a plethora of other textiles. Oh, and the Anno chasuble - a samite cloth dyed with real mollusc purple, dating to about 1000.

As opposed to most special exhibitions in German museums, in this case all the objects are from the hosting museum's own archives, and so you are allowed to take photographs for private purposes (no flash and tripod, so come prepared with a steady hand).

The only downside is that there is no catalogue. There's a comic book that you can complete with a kind of treasure hunt during the exhibition, which is nice and fun in its own way, but nothing even remotely helpful if you're trying to learn more about the individual objects. But yes, that's the only downside, and the pieces themselves are really making a visit worth its while.

The exhibition will run until January 28, 2018, so there's still a bit of time to travel there.

It's neither medieval, nor the classical meaning of "straw to gold", but it's still utterly fascinating and really, really interesting: There's an exhibition called "Stroh zu Gold" in Schloß Moritzburg, showing more than 200 examples of the art of straw plaiting and other straw craft, among them a straw wallpaper from the 18th century.

Plaiting with grass (or similar things) is one of the earliest textile techniques that we can trace, and probably how all this stuff with fuzzy things started out in the first place. So this is something I find incredibly cool - and the good news is that the special exhibition will run until 31.10. this year, and it is open daily.

You can find out more about it (and see some pictures) here. (The page is only available in German.)

Twitter can be really useful sometimes - I learned there that the V&A London will open its new exhibition "Opus Anglicanum, Masterpieces of English Medieval Embroidery"  on 1 October 2016, and the exhibition will run until 5 February 2017.

There's a programme of events related to the exhibition here, and the main page about the special exhibition is here. It looks like a  spectacular line-up of gold embroidery, so if you can manage to get to London during the exhibition, it is surely worth a visit!

I spent the day yesterday looking at the embroidered linen altar cloths from the Altenberger Monastery, and they were really, really breathtaking. It took me a good long while to puzzle out how some of the intricate braided stitches were made, and after that I spent another good long while to look at all the stitch patterns to find that there are not so very many - but they are cunningly worked and varied in a way to look like many more different stitches.

As usual for a special exhibition, it was not permitted to take photographs, so you can picture me standing in front of the displays, periodically putting my nose close to the glass, squinting at details, then straightening back up and sketching manically. These altar cloths are large, and they are just filled with embroidery - thousands and thousands of stitches, an incredible amount of work.

If you can go there and have a look, it is really worth it - the exhibition is running until September 25, so there's still time to pay a visit to Frankfurt.

Speaking of textiles, here are a few links:

Biblical motifs and symbolism in medieval textiles.

By now, you've probably heard of it already, but I will post the link to the world's oldest needle anyways.

And finally, Cathy has an interesting blog article about tutorials for making historical clothing.

 

If you are interested in late medieval embroideries, you might consider a trip to Frankfurt this summer to visit the Städelmuseum. From June 22 to September 25, the museum has a special exhibition called "Heaven on Display" with the stunning liturgical artwork from the convent of Altenberg.

The exhibition features not only the paintings and sculptural art, but also the linen embroidery, with the Altenberg pieces coming together from different museums - from New York to St. Petersburg. Getting all the pieces together again will allow a really outstanding impression of the interplay of the many different media used in early fourteenth-century church furnishing. The Altenberg ensemble is unique in that respect, and I'm definitely planning to go see this.

If you can't make it to Frankfurt, or if you'd like to have a closer look at the individual items first, there's also an accompanying book available, with texts both in German and in English.

It's the middle of a week! And a shorter one at that - time for some links!

Jane Austen's novel "Emma" has its 200 year anniversary this year, and there's an exhibition about it at Chawton House Library, Hampshire, UK. The exhibition will run until September 25, 2016, so if you want to see it, there's still plenty of time left to plan a trip. If you like textiles (which you probably do, since you are reading this blog), it gets even better: part of the exhibition features contemporary embroideries, inspired by patterns from Austen's time. This part is called Stitch-Off, and you can read more about it here. If you're curious about the patterns used, you can find them here, and if your fingers are itching, it's still possible to join in on the project.

Totally unrelated, but rather funny: the UK is building a new polar research ship and they have invited the public to suggest names for their vessel - with interesting results. The leading suggestion is Boaty McBoatface. (The Council responsible was smart, though, as they are only inviting suggestions - they'll be free to pick whatever name they like best in the end.)