I'm back home from the event, which was a truckload of fun, a wild mixture of all sorts of weather (we had a bad storm though we were spared the walnut-sized hailstones that came down a few kilometres away), and lots of old and new friends. Oh, and delicious food. Lots of that, too.

With the stormy night and then a full-moon night both in that week, though, I ended up sleeping very, very late today (hence the late blogpost). The storm flattened quite a few tarps and tents on the camp meadow, but nobody got hurt. The little TGV held up, too - though I lost a wooden peg that connected the upright pole near my bed to the top beam, and consequently spent about an hour holding it up myself before the wind had calmed down enough so I could make an emergency construction with the two poles that usually hold up the awning. This action was followed by some creeping through the tent to take care of stuff that had become wet, and to check on the other pole, and then - blissful sleep.

I'm still feeling sort of not up to full capacity, brain-wise, though. Good thing that today was scheduled as being a day off, which I am very much looking forward to.

Time for some tablet weaving stuff! (In my next life, I will manage to get more time for tablet weaving. And for napping in the sun.)

First of all, a blog post about an Estonian shawl, 13th/14th century, with a tablet-woven border.

Cathy thinks about the Køstrup find, which also has a tablet-woven border. (There's a link to another post with pics in there, should you want to look at brownish textiles.)

And the final tablet-weaving-related bit: Maikki Karisto & Mervi Pasanen have published a book about Finnish tablet-woven bands, called "Applesies and Fox Noses". It's bilingual in Finnish and English, and if I understand correctly, at least a good part of the patterns are taken from original Finnish bands, including medieval ones. The book is available for pre-ordering here, and it's scheduled to come out on June 20.

My list is written, the inventory is up to date, I have refilled and restocked what needed refilling and restocking, all the washing has been done (dirty tablecloths result when you use them for sorting fleece), and I have sewn a new headcloth to replace my old one which, after a few years of wearing, has given out in the place I usually wore at the forehead. I have five (smallish) sacks of wool for sale, my embroidery basket is all sorted out and cleaned, my sunhat is waiting to get some use, and I'm looking forward to a few nice days with doing textile stuff in the sun (or in the shade).

Now all that remains is taking care of some more odds and ends, including printing out some stuff, and then packing the car - which I will probably do tonight, as it's really, really hot outside these days. (So hot that our cat preferred to spend the night outside and sleeps in the cool inside during the day and most of the evening.)

It's nice that summer has come, though - and I absolutely enjoy having some strawberries out of our own garden!

Last week has been insanely busy, stuffed full with the doing of things I had wanted, or planned, to do for a long time. Not least of them my wool-display-making shenanigans! I also managed to give myself sore muscles due to willowing the washed, dried wool (yes, historical wool preparation can substitute a gym session).

This week is, normal-desk-work-wise, a very short one - it's just today and tomorrow, since Herzberg starts on Wednesday. So I am going to be quite busy wrapping up everything that needs to be wrapped up before Wed, packing my stuff, doing the last preparation for the two private workshops I will teach there (and I'm immensely looking forward to that, it's going to be much fun), and so on. The weather is forecast to be very nice, and I've already put "sun hat" on my list of things to take, along with a goodly whack of small and medium-sized projects that have been waiting for some attention for way, way too long.

I will now return to my regularly scheduled computer work... and already look forward to a few days without the machine, and with lots of nice people instead!

It has been ages since I have wanted to kickstart my woolmongering - I am in love with old wools, and even more in love with how a hand-made combed top looks and feels (and spins!). The Internet is full of other folks gushing about how a hand-made combed top looks, feels and spins as well. That taken together was the start of my offering handmade combed top.

The two wools I started out with were Rhoensheep and Racka sheep. Recently, I have also acquired two fleeces of Valaisian Blacknose, a white, longer-staple, very shiny wool that looks a bit like silk when spun. I'm offering those three wools as just washed and fluffed up a little, or as combed top. Now, hand-combed top is quite a bit of work, and thus it's more expensive than the industrially-made stuff, but it is something else to spin with really.

The only problem with my glorious plans of selling hard-to-get wools? My stall is quite tiny (as some of you might know), and the area for display is already full with all the other nice little things I have. So at first, I put up samples of the top and samples of single locks of the wool, but of course that is not the best way to sell quantities.Now I have finally gotten around to making a better display - the three wools from old(ish) sheep races, and I have supplemented them with industrially-made carded batt of Tyrolean Bergschaf and that ubiquitous "calibration standard" of the modern spinner, industrially-made Merino top. It's still being worked on (the display, not the top), but I'm positive I'll be able to finish it today. And if I can be really productive, I might even get around to shredding some of the wool that is below par to offer it as stuffing/filling wool... and that would make sack number six.

I'm also planning to offer a mixed bag with some of each wool in there, though I'm not sure yet whether I should add a bit hand-combed top as well, or just the washed wools; and how much would be a good amount. (Your suggestions, as always, are welcome!)

Writing a book can take you into unexpected directions - such as researching English medieval furniture. After hunting for it for quite a while, I can tell you that there seems to be even less material about it than about German medieval furniture (and that's not much).

So I spent the day yesterday partly in the library, hunting down books and checking them and checking out some more of them, resulting in a very heavy bag of books to carry home. So heavy, in fact, that I had the sudden urge of sweetening the load by buying some sock wool... sock wool does not count, right?

Today's agenda, thus, has more books on it - books that I need to at least skim to see if there is something useful in there. If anyone here has a hint on where to find a good, current book or article about English medieval furniture in the timespan of about 1000 to 1350, it would also be much appreciated!

I had a lovely (and sunny!) weekend, which was ended this morning by someone four-footed and furry purring, very loudly, into my ear. Which means something along the line of "Get up, lazy human, it's time to give me treats!" Being a good human, this is just what I did.

Last week's first try at using the pomodoro technique was interesting and, actually, quite successful, so I will be keeping on with that. I did appreciate the breaks much, much more (especially the lunch break, being longer than the long pomodoro breaks), and it made me realise how much time is spent by all those just-a-minute-breaks inbetween, reading just one post on facebook or taking just one look at this or that. So. If it continues in that line, I will be very content.

There's one modification that I had from the start, though: The original technique wants you to concentrate on one task during the pomo, from start to finish. My goal is just to work through the whole time, no distracting myself with something else, no taking illegitimate breaks inbetween - but switching tasks is allowed, as is finishing one and picking the next one. (No long thinking about which one to pick, though - it's a ten-second-thing, ideally.) That does seem to suit me, and work for me, so I'm very happy to venture on in this trial of the technique.

On the list for this week, by the way, is some more Forum work - it's time to look into all the offers we have and do a first draft of the programme...