First of all, a hopefully helpful link to a free-access bibliography of textiles. This bibliography is part of the Center for Social Research on Old Textiles [CSROT], a research project founded in 1986 in France. Its purpose is to contribute to the critical study of the history of textiles, especially by means of research concerning its bibliographic history. CSROT aims to establish a framework, a "map", of the literature of textile history and to compile a general bibliography reflecting this history, and to disseminate this information among specialized textile, and other, researchers and the broader public. Its second aim is to contribute to a more critical understanding of the history of textiles, and of early craft production in general, by situating them within the broad context of social, economic and cultural history, and the history of creativity.

Their database currently contains more than 9000 titles, all searchable by keywords as well. Here you find an introduction to the Bibliographica Textilia Historiae Database, together with a search link.

Speaking of books, there's a new one coming out: "Se vêtir à la cour en Europe (1400 - 1815)". It is on special offer sale for 18,40 € until December (it will cost 23 € after that), and as the title implies, it's in French. The title does not imply that most of the articles are focusing on early modern or modern clothes, though; there's only a small part actually about the late middle ages. You can find a description and table of contents here, as well as a link to where you can buy it.

And if all that has not held you from your work for long enough, here is a link to a brilliant article on how to procrastinate by getting things done. This is sort of what I tend to do, so I really enjoyed reading it - and yes, it is a helpful strategy.

I have almost finished getting the English webshop up and running - almost all of the items have an English translation now, and I have also figured out shipping and handling prices for outside of Germany and outside of Europe.

There's a few last translation thingies to be made and a little fine-tuning to be done most probably, but if you are curious, you can drop over already and have a first look. Switching languages should be easy now - just click on the German or English flag.


I'm also planning to add hand-spun wool sewing/embroidery thread to the shop, though that will take at least a few days more (or to be more exact, until I have managed to spin and ply a sample batch and then figure out pricing for it). Plus there's another item in the waiting line, soon to be delivered to me and ready to go into the shop.

Good thing it's winter now

Tannenberg is the traditional end of season for me, and is one of the two markets that split the year into the summer and the winter half.

In contrast to all the other years, though, when Tannenberg always meant that you would put on all your really warm clothes and swish them through the very red, very deep and very cold mud, there was not a single drop of rain this year. It was beautiful and sunny and really hot during the day (and not very cold during the night) and felt more like mid-September than start of October. There was even one guy who needed medical attention because he had a sunstroke.

And not only the weather was nice - I had a wonderful time with friends, sitting around the fire and chatting, hanging out and singing and listening to songs, eating delicious food, making fire with flint and steel (I just love that) and meeting lots of old friends and acquaintances again.

I also did the test run for giving small workshops on a market, and I will do this at least once or twice more before I finally decide on a yes or no. Interest was there, and many people told me that they might come, but actual turnup rate of people was not so high. That may be due to too good weather and too much else to do or due to a bad choice of workshop times from my side (at 3 o'clock in the afternoon), but the idea at least was very well received.

And now it's time to take care of all the things left to do here - file the quarter-yearly tax stuff, finish the English online shop thingie, read all the mails that arrived while I was gone, and prepare for the next things on my calendar. And since it's the winter half of the year now, it's also time to take out all the items of the gear over the next weeks, check and clean them, repair them if necessary and pack them away for their next use when the season starts again - accompanied by drinking large amounts of tea and sensible amounts of chocolate.

It has taken me a full day, lots of reading of hints and how-tos and quite a few misunderstandings and "smash forehead against keyboard to continue" - but it seems I have now managed to get the shop website bilingual.

Don't do the happy dance yet, though - there's not all the translated data put into the shop system yet, so if you go there now, you will find a warning that it may not be fully functional (though I hope it will function) and quite a few entries of wares with no text at all in the English version.

And since I ran out of time before packing up for Tannenberg, this will stay like this until middle of next week or so - when I will be back and do things with it again.

There you go. One English webshop, coming right up. Soon-ish.

I can be found at Tannenberg this weekend - we will be going there and setting up today, and stay for the full long weekend.

I can be found on the meadow where I will have my little stall with nice goods for sale - plus a very special new something: a wool preparation station, where you can learn how to process wool with combs or cards and use my tools for that. I am also thinking about offering mini-workshops to learn (or improve) historical handspinning techniques, announced via a blackboard at my stall.

If you are in the area, I hope you will drop by!

I have the texts for the English webshop. I basically know how to implement it. I have made a backup of the site for some upgrades necessary for it.

However, I do not have unlimited amounts of time - since we're leaving for Tannenberg tomorrow, and there's a handsome list of things to take care of before that. So I will not promise that the webshop will be up in English today... I'll give it a try, though.

And now for something completely different:
There is a job offer up on H-Soz-U-Kult for a half-time employment - about Living History and its roles and possibilities, among other things. If you are interested, you can find the full job offer here (German language). I think it's a good sign that Living History is now getting its own, proper research!

I've been on Facebook and LinkedIn and Xing for quite some time now, and yesterday I finally joined academia.edu. I'm not sure anymore why I did not go there and sign up when I first heard about it, but probably I was intending to wait and see whether it would take off or not. And then I sort of forgot about it.

So I'm very glad a colleague on the weekend nudged me to go there again and sign up. The idea behind it really is brilliant - a place where you can put up links to your work, copies of your articles, your academical CV - and at the same time see what others do and follow their work. It feels like a mix between Facebook and Google Scholar for me.

I can be found here on academia.edu - care to join me?