On my task list for the upcoming weekend is a presentation about medieval fabrics... and on my personal task list for this thing is "explain samite". Because I believe that, if you are interested in the fabrics used in the Middle Ages, you need to have at least a very basic understanding of what complex weaves are, as they were used for high-status garments throughout the High and Late Middle Ages.

There are very few people these days who still make medieval-style complex weaves, and one of them is Sylvia Wiechmann, who runs a weaving workshop in Munich. She made a reconstruction of a type of samite called "Kölner Borten" a while ago, and has a video on Youtube showing how they are made, and explaining the process. In German - but maybe watching it is still interesting for you even if you don't understand the text:


 

While doing my prep for the weekend (so many fascinating things trying to side-track me! So many things I'd like to do more research about! So many questions remaining!), I stumbled across an open access online journal about Archaeology of the Low Countries. Sadly, this lovely little journal only had a few issues before coming to a stall, but the Journal for Archaeology in the Low Countries website might still be worth a visit for you - especially since vol. 2, published in 2010, includes an article by Chrystel Brandenburgh about early medieval textile remains.

 

Three things I've recently discovered:

There's a project called Thefbo, looking at the textile crafts from prehistory at Lake Constance and Upper Swabia. They even have a blog, in German and English, so you can have a look at what they are up to (which included some retting of linden bast fibres last year).

Also having a blog: Stadtarchäologie Wien (Vienna City Archaeology) - this one's only in German, though. Clicking the link will bring you directly to an article about a woven band (with metal threads).

Third thing, having nothing to do with textiles: There's a website called toogoodtogo.com, and the people behind it would like to reduce the food waste that happens, on a very regular basis, in restaurants, bakeries, and food shops. Basically, you can sign up and then buy a packet of leftover food using the corresponding app for your phone; you pay a small amount of money (which means this reduces the loss the business makes) and get food that is too good to go to waste for rather little money. I've not tested this (yet!), but find it a brilliant idea. After all, this way, everybody wins - the environment, because there's less waste; the business, as they make less loss; and the customer, as they get a surprise food package for a good price. Toogoodtogo is available in several countries; you can check out if yours is among them on their website.

More of the things-going-on-here info: I am sitting here working on an overview about fabrics in the Middle Ages. This is a large topic, and a complicated one, with many facets and many aspects and rather bad sources. Fortunately I'm "only" going for a two-hour talk, so the bad sources don't matter too much, as there's too little time anyways to go into detail of such a kind that I'd need much better sources. (Though, of course, things would be easier with better source material, which means a) more textile finds that are b) published in an easily accessible way...)

At the moment, I'm still in assembly mode. I usually start presentation outlines with a more or less rough idea of the things I want to cover, then gather all the necessary info for this, stick in a lot of pictures, think of even more things that are definitely relevant, thus stick in more stuff, then do a test run and discover I have to cut things down by about two thirds... which I then do and manage more or less, only to find things during that process that have to be added in for things to make sense, which usually makes things interesting again.

Right now, though, more things get added, and a bit later, I'll do a run-through where I babble to myself to find out how long the monster will take, to consequently enter the next stage. While I am working on that, here are two potentially time-consuming links for you - enjoy!

The Archaeological Textiles Newsletter (now the Archaeological Textiles Review) has been around for quite a while, and they have published a lot of very interesting articles, most of them short but informative.
Because the ATR people are very nice indeed, you can download the back issues up to issue 59 (which is from 2017) from their website, for free. Of course you can also subscribe to the Review, which will then bring you the more recent ones.

If that's not enough to keep you occupied, you can head over to the website of the Bamberger Staatsbibliothek and leaf your way through the digitised Bamberger Apokalypse, dating to the early 11th century. (If you're in the area, there will also be an exhibition, starting soon, about the manuscript.)

 

As every year, Amica and Maria, the two wonderful textile nerds (that is according to their own description, mind you) behind the blog Historical Textiles are making a textile advent calendar. As every year, I'm only catching on halfway, and then have to catch up.

Do pay them a visit - there's some wonderful photo of an old bit of fibery goodness every single day!

I've recently mentioned the Open Access books available at OApen.org - and I've found now that the books available include Karina Grömer's book about prehistoric textiles, both in the German and the English version. You can find them here - enjoy!

It's time for some random links for you again (in hopes of getting my huge number of browser tabs diminished into something remotely sensible looking) - so here you go:

A new method for baking bread in minutes - researchers in Vienna are baking bread by sending electricity directly through the dough, which is looking especially good for things like gluten-free breads. You can read more about it here (in German).

If you put things on the Internet, chances are that someone else will see them and maybe feel inspired by them. Or... "inspired". There's also a chance that the idea might be taken and something entirely different made from it. Like in this case:
Bernadette Banner has made a dress reconstruction for herself, and the image of this has been used as the basis for a knockoff, sold very cheaply. So she bought a knockoff of her own dress, and made a long video about this:


If you prefer to read things to watching videos, you might want to go and browse the OpenAccess books at the OApen Library - for example the archaeology section.

There's also a bit of information online about Viking Age brocaded tablet-woven bands, as the teaser to a paper being presented at NESAT 2020.

Finally, here's something about giving media interviews as a scientist. I've been interviewed a couple of times now, and it's always exciting, and a little bit scary as well - but being well-prepared, as the article also states, definitely helps a lot.