Just before the year runs out, there are a few new things in the shop - two new kinds of combed top and two versions of a really helpful little tool.

Have I made you curious?

One of the new wools is Gotland wool, consisting of light and dark fibres of similar diameter, which results in a grey overall appearance - but the yarn will, on closer look, show the dark and light fibres. It makes for a fascinating spinning, and a similarly fascinating yarn!

[caption id="attachment_2821" align="alignnone" width="640"] Black and white... makes grey. A really beautiful one in this case.


The other wool is similarly inhomogenous - but it also has different fibre diameters. It's light almost-white to dark brown in the individual fibres, resulting in a light to medium brown wool overall:

[caption id="attachment_2820" align="alignnone" width="640"] Have some variety. In your fibre diameter and in the colour!


I'm even happier, though, about finally having a special kind of helpful tool in the shop: Thread Counters. One a little pricier, but with a higher-quality lens and made from sturdy metal:

[caption id="attachment_2819" align="alignnone" width="640"] Metal Thread Counter


and the other, as the even more affordable option, made from high-quality plastic with a very good lightweight plastic lens:

[caption id="attachment_2818" align="alignnone" width="640"] Plastic Thread Counter


Both kinds are made by Eschenbach Optik (that have their company in the next large town over, which delights me no end, being a believer in regional trade and such) and they are made in Germany. Both have a tenfold magnification, which is the upper end of what thread counters usually do. I've used a thread counter for ages now (it's what I use for checking spinning angle, for instance), and having a good one really is incredibly helpful.

You can get more information about all these things in the shop - click the links in the text to get directly to the individual items, or this one here to get to the shop front, where they should all be waiting for you with their new friends...

It is a truth universally acknowledged by every spinner, weaver, knitter or other textile craftsperson that any tools needed for the craft are herd animals.

As of today, I have a new addition to my personal herd of spinning tools. Never mind that over the years I have accumulated more spindle sticks than I can shake a stick at (quite a few of the sticks intended for sale made it into my personal tool stash). Never mind that I already have two wheels (four, if you count the two not-really-functional ones).

The two functional wheels I do own already are good ones... for their purpose. The reconstruction of the medieval Great Wheel is a wonderful wheel that is suitable for serious production of woolen yarns. It may be slightly wonky, due to the fact it needs to be completely taken apart for travel, but that doesn't make it less productive. It will only do for woolen yarn, though, and it takes up a lot of space, and the yarn (as I have not practiced enough) tends to be a bit uneven. The other one is a small one - my first wheel ever, and it is rather... slow. These days, it is mostly used to wind off portions of thread for selling them, so it still earns its keep, even though not through making yarn.

Once in a while, though, I get a request from a museum regarding yarns that will be as close as possible to the historical originals. For many textiles, especially high medieval or earlier ones, that means thin, very high-twist worsted yarns. Spinning these on a spindle is technically no problem, but even if I do spin quite quickly these days, wind-up time always means that spinning takes a long time. The wheels I own are also not suitable for making yarns of this type - it is technically possible, but takes about the same time as spindle spinning does. I tried to re-vamp one wheel (that is one of the not-really-functional ones), but there were serious problems with the friction necessary to drive the very small whorls. So I can offer historical threads, yes, but as it takes very long to spin them, they are very pricey indeed.

When I was at Wackershofen the weekend before last, though, I finally got the opportunity to try out an e-spinner and see if it could be persuaded to deliver the ratio of twist and yarn intake that I need. Long story short - it did, and today this package arrived here:


Inside, nested in copious amounts of bubble-wrap, is the Zwirnzwerg (literally: plying gnome):


It doesn't come on its own, though (herd animals, remember?) - it is accompanied by a Lazy Kate and two extra bobbins (for a total of three) and a foot pedal and some spare bits (the brake cord, for instance).

The Zwirnzwerg (and how could I not fall for something called a plying gnome...) is produced in Germany, and is relatively new to the market. With all the accessories, and the maker's willingness to cater to special wishes, it is sold for a very, very fair price. The manufacturer's page is German only, but there are some pics, and google translate does a decent enough job to turn it into semi-readable English. I did ask him when we met at the Ravelry fair, and yes, he does ship internationally.

And here it is, my very own helpful gnome:


We will now have to get to know each other, and I will have to get a feel for spinning the yarns I want with it. Obviously, I had to give it a go straight away. The result?


About 0.5 mm in diameter, and with a twist angle of 35-45°.

Or, to stay with the Austen references: I am quite delighted!

Here's a truth about me that you probably already know: I really like coffee. (I also really like tea, cats, cakes, and chocolate, though I do not consume cats. As opposed to the other things.) I like the varieties best that have little acidity. I drink it with milk, and like it strong enough to get a good coffee taste with a bit of bitterness, but not too strong - the "French" or "Norwegian" coffee at the Textile Forum is usually too much for me, and I water it down. (A lot.)

I also like coffee cups. There are so many funny, fancy mugs in our household that even though we do have "proper" coffee cups that match the rest of our tableware, we usually grab one of the non-matching mugs. Well, more or less non-matching, as there are a few sets - one with cartoon animals doing seasonal stuff, with the mugs aptly labeled "spring", "summer", "autumn", and "winter", and one set of two cups where one is "pro!" and the other "contra!"

And from that rich assortment of cups, there are a very few that sort of belong only to the most patient husband of them all (as in only he is using them and we also don't give them to guests to use), and a few (admittedly a few more) that are mine and mine alone. Because they are my favourites. (One of these, curiously, used to be a favourite of his, until I sort of usurped it, and it has been ages since he last drank out of it.) Another favourite is a raku-ware cup that a friend gave to me on my last birthday, hitting several sweet spots at once - my love for raku and handmade things, my love for nice and rather large cups, and my colour preferences. Yet another one is a souvenir cup I brought home from a visit to a conference in Poland, years ago.

All these have one thing in common - they are a bit or a significant bit larger than the usual coffee mug (which in turn is much larger than a normal coffee cup). There's just one of my fave mugs that is normal mug-sized... but it's still the coolest coffee cup ever:

[caption id="attachment_2576" align="alignleft" width="228"] That's tea stains in the cup. I had a cuppa tea before I had coffee. Sue me.



I bought this a few years ago at the game fair in Essen, in the comics area. It's the ultimate cup for a coffee-loving archaeologist, and in case you are one or know one or just need that cup too anyways, here's the webshop where you can get it. (The shop is in German, but it should be straightforward enough.) There are a few more nice cups in that shop, too, and not all of them have a strictly German pun such as this one. (Ziehen, in German, both means "to draw" if you are talking about a gun, and "to steep" if you are talking about tea.) Enjoy. Don't blame me if you end up with another mug or two. (These things are herd animals anyway. Just like spinning tools. Or bicycles. Right?)

Textile terminology, as many of you will probably know, can be a never-ending headache. Especially when you are looking at texts in a foreign language. Consequently, there have been a few attempts at making glossaries or catalogues; sometimes, there is a small multi-language glossary or dictionary in the appendix to a book or article. Burnham's "Warp and Weft" also states the terms for different weaves in several languages.

However, there's a whole book with textile terminology that I had never heard about before: “Nordisk textilteknisk terminologi- Förindustriell vävnadsproduktion”, written by  Elisabeth Strömberg, Agnes Geijer, Margrethe Hald and Martha Hoffman and published in 1967. The title of the book translates to “Nordic textile technical terminology - pre-industrial fabric  production”. The book consists of Swedish term definitions, with synonyms in Danish, Icelandic, Norwegian, Finnish, English, French and German. The edition was revised by Geijer and Hoffmann in 1979. The Icelandic and Finnish terms were compiled by Elsa E. Guðjónsson.

So there's a whole book out there - and it gets even better. Amica and Maria from historicaltextiles.org have brought together KulturNav, a website where museums and other organisations can have shared lists of things hosted; the Textile Museum in Borås, who agreed to manage the dataset from the book, and friendly help from fellow nerds to convert the whole book into a database.

And now it's done - the Terminology is online and available, for free, via KulturNav. You can find the whole back story, and some instructions on how to use the database, on the Historical Textiles blog, including instructions on how to contribute should you find something is missing, or would like to suggest a change.

This is a wonderful thing - and my thanks to everybody involved who made this possible!

I've discovered Yoga a good while back (in spring 2013, actually) and have been doing a little bit of yoga once a week, sometimes skipping it, and sometimes adding in a bit of extra yoga time since then. With the sort-of "life reboot"* that I have going on at the moment, started off by the weight-loss-myth-busting book that I read in early January, I've returned to the mat with more dedication again - and yesterday, I discovered that Do Yoga With Me (which is still my favourite place to go to for yoga class videos - if you're interested in yoga at all, do go check them out) has a 14-day challenge up, featuring fourteen classes with Fiji McAlpine.

Well, technically this challenge started on January 10, so I'm a bit late to the party. I'm also not completely convinced that I will not need a day inbetween to take a break, as Fiji is incredibly fit and I find her classes rather challenging, to the point that I have in the past taken a look at a few of them, or did the first bit and then gave up, switching to something less taxing. I did the first day of the challenge as my morning bit of sports today, though, and I managed to get through it with just a few little extra breaks (because while I'm not at the very low end of a fitness scale, I am definitely way, way less fit than I could be).

So I'm feeling a little tired now, and quite happy with myself. Which is actually a very nice combination. Tomorrow? I'll try day two, and I'll see how it goes.

 
* Looks like that is a Thing at the moment, too - Wil Wheaton has started his reboot back in October last year. Alasdair Stuart of the Escape Artists (free podcasts for Fantasy, SF and Horror) is in week 3 of his new fitness plan of working out 5 times a week. And there's probably a lot more people that are doing something similar right now - after all, the start of a year is a good time to take stock and change things for the better.

You're getting a late blogpost today because I had slow internet today, and it even ate a half-written post... but you are getting one, and it is one with free stuff! (Very fitting for the season...)

First of all, as a reminder - free ebook in Aarhus Uni Press this month is Woven into the Earth. Go download it if you haven't done so yet, and tell your friends who are interested in archaeological textiles. This is a wonderful book, and it is definitely good to have.

You already downloaded it? You would like more books? Here you go.

On a completely different, and very much non-archaeological note - there is a free e-book about working with MS Word, "Microsoft Word for Publishing Professionals" by Jack M. Lyon. A few years ago, the author's newsletter "Editorium" helped me a lot when prodding my thesis text into shape, as well as later when I had typesetting to do. If you're working with Word (as so many people in the social/historical/archaeological sciences do), you might want to give it a look.

And now on to the juicy bits.

I had the opportunity to visit Estonia for a few days, and I didn't only meet lovely fellow textile people and fellow archaeologists and got to see exciting finds in several museums and a good number of the Estonian textile finds, I also brought home some books (about, who would have guessed it, Estonian textile finds). Two of them are about the finds from Siksälä, which is a burial site used continuously from the 11th to the 15th century - the Estonian Iron Age and Middle Ages. Siksälä has yielded exceptionally rich finds, including textiles wonderfully decorated with bronze spirals. There's a publication in two parts, a text part and a catalogue part; both are in Estonian*, but anyone can look at the pictures and construction drawings. And if I say anyone, I do mean it - both the first volume and the second volume are available online, free of charge, thanks to the University of Tartu.

Another absolutely amazing Estonian find is the craft box from Lohavere (which should be written with a little ~ sitting on top of the o), which comes from the hillfort of the same name, dated to the 12th and early 13th century. If you know the Mästermyr find and have always dreamt of something similar, but related to textiles? Here it is. The craft box, made from birch bark, contained textile remains, prefabricated and half-finished products, bronze ornaments and tools, some of them neatly stored in smaller boxes or little pouches. It is an absolutely fascinating find and gives so much information about how the spiral decorations were worked... and it, too, is published in a little book, and that, too, is available online free of charge.

These finds absolutely deserve to be better-known - so feel free to spread the word, and of course enjoy the publications of these gorgeous finds!

*Estonian is a language belonging to the Finno-Ugric group, and more or less related to Finnish. A few fun facts: Estonian has fourteen cases. Yes, fourteen - because there are no words to signal direction (like "into" or "from"), and a case is used instead. More fun facts? Estonian has no genders, so there's no problem with being politically correct. Because there were a lot of Germans in Estonia in the Middle Ages (Hanseatic League was a reason for that, for instance) there are quite a few German words still around, which makes not understanding most of the rest even more peculiar. Final fun fact for today: as I'm easily amused, it diverted me no end that the greeting "Tere" sounds much like the southern German colloquial "Dere" (which is very short for "Habe die Ehre", I have the honour). If you're intrigued now, here are a few useful Estonian phrases, and here is a very interesting pdf with facts about Estonian.

Aarhus University Press has a long list of books in their catalogue, and they include Else Oestergaard's "Woven into the Earth", the wonderful book about the garment finds from Greenland. They also have a monthly campaign of one e-book that they post on their site, downloadable for free.

Guess what this month's ebook is? Right - Woven into the Earth. Go here to download it, and feel free to spread the word. The book is absolutely wonderful and a must-have if you are interested in medieval garments. (h/t to Christa, who found this first.)

Other delightful news - the open-air museum village in Düppel, where I went to give a presentation this summer, has won a cultural award given out by Berlin. Congratulations!