From time to time, I dabble in medieval headwear. Especially... weird medieval headwear. 

Recently I've been involved in a project that, in turn, involves women's headdresses in the Late Middle Ages. And that means I finally got around to trying out this weird piece of headgear: 

I've seen it worn solo on a Rogier van der Weyden painting (Mary Magdalen), and since also worn below a mostly normal headcloth (exact way of draping yet unsolved). It seems to be not totally common, but also not a complete singular fantasy piece either.

Should you have found images of this, worn solo or underneath a veil, please let me know! I'm still collecting evidence. And I will keep you updated on the veil draping progress...

Some things are really made easier and more accessible by modern technology. Case in point? 3D scans and then digital models of items that you can look at, from your own cosy home, without ever setting foot in Norway.

Or, to make it a little more straightforward: The Uni of Oslo's Kulturhistorisk Museum has made 3D-scans from some of their items and put them online. So now you can look at a medieval incense burner or at wooden items from the Oseberg ship. And yes, that includes the niddy-noddy found there, in great detail.

So you will probably want to head over to https://3d.unimus.no/ now and fall down the rabbit hole yourself... have fun! 

If you are into historical tablet weaving, you might know the tablet-woven band found in Hallstatt. Now a new find has been made and analysed, and it might be from the same workshop or even a part of the same band - at least the colour pattern and the thread number all match so that you can weave both motifs on the same warp.

Want to read more? The new piece has been published in an article in the newest Archaeological Textiles Review for 2024, and you can download the full issue (and all the others, too) on their website.

No more blogposts for the rest of this week, as I'm in beautiful Italy to teach at the Winter School for Textiles organised at the University of Padova. If you're curious and want to read more, you can do so in Italian here. 

Now and then, I get to do shopping for the shop. Some things are re-orders of goods (semi-exciting), some are first orders of things (very exciting), and some are logistical items like boxes or packing tape. 

The logistical stuff is mostly not very exciting; once I've found good boxes in suitable sizes, I tend to stick with them, making re-stocking those pleasantly boring. One part of the logistics shopping that is technically very un-exciting but still fun is shopping for stamps.

Quite a few of my orders go out via Deutsche Post, paid for by stamps. It's the best method for a certain size and weight range that many of my smaller orders fall into, and using that possibility helps me keep the postage fees down. (Obviously, it's still more than ust the postage, as there's the packing materials to pay for, which includes the tape, and some very non-obvious costs like the fee for the customer putting the packaging into the recycling bin. The stuff adds up surprisingly!) 

So long story short - from time to time, I get to order stamps. And of course I try to pick out ones that have a relevance for me, like "800 years this or that place", or "Democracy needs democrats" or, yes, "cats as domestic animals". Trying to make the stamps say something and not just use the boring option of the Deutsche Post "Letter" series (where they now have all possible postages) usually means that I have to stick not one, but several stamps onto each package... which I also find quite enjoyable.

There's usually a set of favoured combinations of certain stamps after a while, and that lasts until I start to run out (with an increasing amount of stamps on each parcel as I need to get the correct amount together somehow) and then new things starting to get combined once the new stamp order arrives, usually with different motifs than the previous one, as they run out of old ones and print new, different things.

Having just placed an order, I'm looking forward to find out what will be the fave combos this time!

I've been battling the yearly end-of-year book-keeping - with some extra excitement this year as I was able to enjoy a few (minor, but still nerve-wracking) glitches in the programme.

Finally, all the numbers on the screen lined up with all the printed numbers or those on the other screen, and it's time to finally put 2024 to bed after it's zombied on for a bit. Well, there will be a short resurrection at some point between March and June when the tax paperwork will be done, but until then, it can rest in peace.

While this is seeing its wrap-up today, plus some exciting prep-and-pack work for the winter school in Padova later this week, you might enjoy to read a bit about metallurgy analyses done on the famous, fabulous Nebra Sky Disc.

Welcome back here on the blog - which should have declared my winter break until today, but the post got stuck in the publishing process. Anyways, I'm happy you're here (still or again), and I'm already looking forward to an interesting year with a lot of things going on...

One of my first shenanigans will be going down to Italy to teach a tiny bit of spinning to the participants of the Winter School "Textiles make the world go round". Then there's a knit-along starting on ravelry on January 18 that I'm sort of involved in (I made the pattern). Most of the knit-along will probably be in German, but the pattern is available in both German and English, so if you're interested, you can check it out here. 

And speaking of knitting - the Knitting History Forum this year is taking place on February 1 (a Saturday). It's an online conference with six presentations, followed by discussion, and the tickets are available now on the Knitting History Forum Website.