Today is the opening ceremony for the exhibition on Burg Hartenstein, and from tomorrow, the exhibition is open to the public.

If you are around here, why not give the two knightly guys I made and clothed a visit? The exhibition is open on Thursday and Friday afternoons (from 15.00) and on Saturdays and Sundays (from 10.00).

And if you are not in the Nuremberg area, you can see one of the guys greeting you on the official homepage of the Freundeskreis Hartenstein e.V., the association that initialised making the exhibition.

Today, the two knights for the exhibition at Hartenstein will be placed into their final spots and installed securely (so they don't gallop off in the night or, even worse, fall onto an unsuspecting visitor).

Setting up for an exhibition, for me, it's always a very exciting thing and surely a cocktail of emotions. There's a little anxiety (did I bring everything? will it all fit?), a little stress (oh my goodness I hope it doesn't all take so long to set up as this item), an amount of fun (after all, things are finally coming together as they are supposed to do), a generous measure of pleasant anticipation and hope (ah, this looks really nice here, that will be splendid once we open, I hope everybody else likes it as much) and, of course, a dash of "oh no!" (oh no, a badly done tiny spot/a little fault/a scratch already!) to spice it all up.

And altogether, I like this cocktail very much... so I am really looking forward to today's session.

Making medieval garments is something nice and fun - but seeing them worn or seeing them in an exhibition is something else again. And two sets of garments are going on display very soon now:
In November (on November 13/14, to be exact), a new exhibition will be opened in Burg Hartenstein (Wikipedia in German, with picture of the castle) in Franconia - featuring two knights fully dressed, with garments that I made. One of them is the 14th century knight and lord of Hartenstein, the second man is a Teutonic Knight from around 1200.

Since the exhibition is not opened yet, I will post no pictures today - but it won't be long now... Meanwhile, if you read German, you can also pay a visit to the official website of castle and of the group organising and running the exhibition, the Freundeskreis Burg Hartenstein.

After a nice week-end, I'm fit for blogging again, but not too inspired as to a topic today. So instead of me thinking too much and straining my brain, here's a link for those of you who don't know it yet:

The Middle High German Database (mhdbdb, standing for Mittelhochdeutsche Begriffsdatenbank) - a database where you can search middle high german texts for word occurrences

and its sister database, the IMAREAL picture database, where you can search pictures for things and persons.

Enjoy!

Tomorrow I will go to Bad Staffelstein to collect the exhibits again and bring them back home, since the two-week exhibition is over. So if you are in the area, today's your last chance to see it!

For the exhibition in Bad Staffelstein, I made video snippets to demonstrate both how the textile techniques look "in action" and to give a small impression about how time-consuming textile works can be. Here's one of the four snippets I made, showing tablet weaving in twill structure, done with modern weaving tools (also known as butchered playing cards). I translated the text into English - it's German in the exhibition, of course.

It's no teaching video, but it does show my weaving setup and work procedures - so tablet weavers might be able to see what I'm doing and how, and others hopefully still get an impression of how long such work takes, and that it's not the tools or any machinery that make the pattern, but the brains and hands of the person working.

The opening of yesterday's exhibition went really fine, and people came in all during the day to see the exhibition and look at the different textile techniques - so I call yesterday a success.
The Altstadtfest was very nice as well, with gloriously sunny weather and a lot of people strolling through the streets, eating, drinking, listening to music, watching crafts presentations, and generally amusing themselves.

Here are some photos from the exhibition:


Preparing for the opening - I'm sorting out my hairnet for demonstration of the technique, and you can see the demo band for tablet weaving (twill demonstration), still secured with a clamp and unattached, in front on the table. The brand-new wonderful table, by the way, that will accompany me to markets, events and any occasions I need a medieval table. I'm so happy about it!


This is a picture taking during my introduction speech for the exhibition - I was showing a snippet of spinning with the drop spindle to make people realise how much time is needed for making just the threads for weaving. This usually works very well, and it did also in Bad Staffelstein.


This picture was taken right after the official part, with the honorary guests and the gentleman of the bank who opened the exhibition. On the photo, you see two "royalties" at once - the "Korbkönigin" (Queen of Basketwork) from Lichtenfels, the German "Capital of Basket Making", and the "Thermenkönigin" (Queen of thermal springs) from Bad Staffelstein. And my colleague Marion, dressed medievally as well, who helped to draw people in and explain all day long.

So because yesterday was nice but exhausting, and I'm really tired today, I'm taking a day off. No work requiring brains today, hooray!