The long weekend is over, and I have found a flood of mails in my inbox and a heap of things to do. Around Ascension, I traditionally get together with a handful of other people to do some bookbinding work*, which means a fun combination of creativity, friendly banter and precise measuring. This always gets me totally absorbed and has the positive side effect of practical things coming out in the end - folders for sorting or transporting loose papers, books or folders suitable as presents, copies bound together in book form, well-read books lovingly repaired and restored to function, and - last but not least - boxes. I like doing boxes. Handmade ones are sturdy, lightweight, and really beautiful. This year's yield is still being pressed so it will dry straight and true, so no proper photos yet, but three years ago I made this:


I love getting out of the normal flow of things for a long weekend off, preferably doing something that really and completely takes my thoughts away from the work back home, but I always find it a tiny bit hard to get back into the workflow on the Monday after that. And that's just what I need to do now.

I really enjoyed the Easter days - Yummy Chocolate eggs, all my family coming together, and glorious weather.

And some productivity, too: Good Friday was spent playing around with cloth in nice company. Sitting around doing strange things to textiles is just so much more fun when you're not alone in the room.

Since Friday was technically a day off, I found the time to play around with wax for sealing and securing cut edges. There are some hints that beeswax was used for this in the middle ages, and I've long wanted to give it a proper try. I did use wax twice before: Once on the kruseler I've made, and once more to seal dagges cut from fine silk cloth. I'm still not sure on how it was done in medieval times, though.

In those first tries, I applied the wax by rubbing some beeswax onto a relatively hot copper plate and then dipping the edge of the fabric into the molten wax. It was pretty hard to control how much wax would come in at once, and it took a rather long time, with uneven wax rims. But it worked, for the straight edges as well as for the oakleaf dagges.

I have recently acquired a tjanting, the Indonesian wax applicator for batik, and I have used that for my last wax application. It is a bit tricky to get the temperature just right (especially when the candle flame used to heat the tjanting is not too cooperative), but it was a lot more convenient than the copper-plate version. And now I'm wondering: In what extent was wax used to neaten and conserve cut edges? With what types of fabric, and in which cases? And how did they apply the wax back in the middle ages - is there a medieval European equivalent to the tjanting that was not yet identified, because nobody expects the Spanish Inquisition a wax application tool in a tailoring/silkworking context?

We're in Lent right now, as I was reminded yesterday, and our dinner sort of got me thinking about fasting and fasting in Lent in particular.
We went to some friends yesterday and had dinner there - we brought a salad to go with the pastries our friends prepared. Simple puff pastries filled with minced meat and bell peppers.

It's been a good while since I had bell peppers in a hot meal, because our groceries from the box are seasonal and regional produce, and that means no bell peppers in winter. There are still enough different veggies to prepare meals with, but in the last few months of eating local vegetables, I developed a new and deeper understanding of how wonderful spring and summer is when you are living "the old way". It's true that we can read about it, that connected to Easter festivities is the knowledge that this was to celebrate the beginning of the warm season, et cetera et cetera - but knowing this intellectually and looking forward to spring because it directly influences your diet are two very different things.

So yesterday's addition of bell peppers made that dinner an extremely enjoyable meal for me. With the feeling of true luxury (they were very tasty peppers, too). And I started to wonder about lent in the middle ages - fourty days of food restrictions in a row. Food restrictions normally limited to a few days out of each week, hard enough to understand for our modern minds. And that at more or less the end of the winter season, when the tasty treats conserved for the cold half of the year are probably gone or mostly gone, when chickens might stop laying so many eggs, when everyone is probably tired of eating beans, lentils and cabbage dishes.

So. The rather bland winter diet (bland at least compared to summer and autumn fare), followed by a period of even blander food, cutting out meat altogether. Fourty days of scarcity, and then - Easter, the high church festival of the year, the onset of spring, the feasting with meat and eggs and whathaveyou. Somehow, this makes me think of intentional deprivation to heighten the impact of the feasting and celebrating. Digging into the foodie goodness prepared for the Easter meal must have been something really, really special after seasonal winter food and Lent. Something that we today, when following Lent, might only get a small taste of, because my guess is that the winter foodstuff before Lent makes a huge difference.

And by the way, I'm really looking forward to spring.

I'm away from home and, therefore, this blog for the next week and a bit, for a mixture of Conference, Birthday Partying and holidays.
Regular blogging will resume Monday, 30 March.

Have a good time until then!

I'm on the conference about colours in the middle ages, "Farbiges Mittelalter" in Bamberg. The conference will last until Thursday, but since I'm a bit stressed right now, regular blogging will resume next Monday.

A few weeks ago, we made an order for something that feels like an everyday adventure to me: We subscribed for an organic produce box. A smallish company in our region offers home delivery every week, with an assortment of fruits and vegetables, organically produced - and you can even opt for regional vegetables only, which leaves you with truly seasonal food.

I love this box. First of all, there's less grocery shopping to be done: We still buy the few things we use in larger quantities, potatoes and occasionally onions, at our normal grocery store. But the big deal about shopping for fruit and vegetables, for me, was always choosing. Having to decide between produce that was grown locally or imported in - or between buying imported food or nothing at all, in some cases. Then choosing what to get. The things well-known, with the preparation down pat? Or something else for a different taste (that might not please)? Since I am one lazy bugger, I ended up on the familiar grounds most of the time.

That is now a problem of the past.

While you can opt out for some of veggies or fruits you don't like, the subscription box will arrive, and there's probably something new in it from time to time - just what I had wished for. They even add a sheet of paper with information and a recipe suggestion for the more exotic things. Before the box, I was looking for recipes in the internet to get inspiration on what to buy. Nowadays, I'm just googling the main vegetable ingredient I want to use and browse through the hits until I find something that sounds appealing. Which has added a touch of adventure to cooking - exactly what I had hoped for. And there is much difference between "not buying something" and "canceling an order for something" - though I usually check a week before what we will get. (Because I'm also very, very curious.)

Is it cheap? No. Our grocery bill has gone up significantly with the box - but so has the amount of fruit and vegetables consumed. And the quality of the foods way surpasses what we can usually get, each and every single piece. There's even a refund should something have gone bad inside, unnoticed by the handlers.

Is it convenient? Well, yes and no. Yes, because the time spent in grocery stores, produce aisles or farmers' markets is cut down to or close to zero. On the other hand, you have to be there when they deliver or have an arrangement, perhaps with a neighbor to receive the box for you (and hand back the empty one).

Is it worth it? In my opinion: Totally. Which is why I write about it here (instead of about medieval garments like I'm supposed to).

First things first, and a happy, healthy and successful year 2009 to all you readers out there!

I'm back home since yesterday in the afternoon, but today and tomorrow are still for rest and relaxation, before work starts again. I started the new year with a bout of 'flu or something like it, and so I'll be going easy tomorrow.

2008 for me was full of exciting things, and the most sparklingly important happenings for me were finishing my thesis (I handed it in at the end of March) and successfully defending it in July. The first half of the year thus was filled with alternately stressing (much) and trying to de-stress; the latter with one short trip to Berlin (with a concert given by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain) and one long trip to Copenhagen. The Denmark trip was not overly much destressing, though, since I also went to NESAT, but a wonderful experience. I went hunting for a publisher for my thesis, which was exhilarating, and I learned a lot about the publishing process while reading up about the business and putting the materials together. I also thought a lot about the future, money, insurances and how I want to make the money I need, and I will find out in 2009 whether freelancing only is possible for me. Our main holiday trip was spent canoeing on the Mecklenburger Seenplatte, and it was wonderful and very quiet, since we went rather late in the year. I had a stressful though fun order for a new exhibition that will come up as soon as the building in Hartenstein is finished, and that saw me busy through most of September and all of October. Not that I've not been busy since - there is next year's summer season to prepare, since I have a few medieval events on my calendar already; I have a conference to attend in March and a talk to give in January; and a bunch of other things to prepare and write besides.

Alltogether, 2008 has been a good and very successful year for me, and I hope that 2009 will turn out as well - for me and for you, too.