On to another day at the tent - which really has to get finished one of these days, and there's still quite a bit to do. At least I have almost finished one of the long tunnels that will (hopefully) keep the fabric in the roof part more or less taut; I only have to close it with one 2,30 m whipstitch seam now. I have to do another test run for the waterproofing (also on the plan for today) to figure out the best ratio stuff:water when diluting the stuff to make it applicable. And there's one more short tunnel for the back horizontal bar to sew in, and then there's mostly only the sides, hems and the small stuff to do.  According to experience, though, the small stuff takes abnormally long (and always much longer than expected).

I wonder if that means that if I now adjust my expectations to a ridiculously short time for the finishing touches - will it go faster? Obviously there's no use in expecting a more realistic figure, since it will take longer anyways, right?

We had some fun in the evening in the garden yesterday, taking care of some of the sweaty tasks like starting to build a slightly raised vegetable bed with old compost earth and removing some of the lawn thatch. Slowly but surely, things are coming along in the garden - and of course the tulips are growing! But to me, the best thing about the garden is the gazillions of birds landing on the front lawn and the flower beds for their breakfast. Blackbirds especially - and I am very fond of blackbirds!

Slowly but surely is the proper description for the tent progress as well, and the rest of today will also be tent-sewing time. I have dug out a radio drama CD full of stories from "Jonas, der letzte Detektiv" (Jonas, the last Private Eye), a sci-fi detective story with a really high body-count - but wonderful to listen to. The series is from 1984 and following years, and the author, Michael Koser, did write about some things that are getting more and more realistic, which makes the series a little unnerving at times. If you understand German and can get your hands on that series, I can highly recommend it!

In addition to the nice stuff from yesterday, there's good news for those of you interested in the garments from Skjoldehamn:

Dan Halvard Løvlid has finished his thesis about the Skjoldehamn garments, and it is available as free pdf! You can download the file from
http://www.lofotr.no/pdf/Skjoldhamnfunnet/Nye%20tanker%20om%20Skjoldehamnfunnet.pdf

It's in Norwegian, but there are English captions for the pictures with some information.

Also available is an article from Dan Halvard about the connection between the Skjoldehamn costume and Sami costumes, available here: http://www.lofotr.no/pdf/Skjoldhamnfunnet/Skjoldehamnfunnet%20i%20lys%20av%20ny%20kunnskap.pdf
 
Have fun!

A few things/notices/links have accumulated again, and here's getting them out to you:

 - The European Association of Archaeology will have its annual meeting 1-5 September, in the Netherlands. The conference will include a session called "Threads to the past: novel methods for investigation of archaeological textiles and other organic materials". You can get more info on the conference homepage http://www.eaa2010.nl/.

 - The International Symposium and Exhibition on Natural Dyes and Colorants (ISEND) 2011 Europe will take place in La Rochelle, on the west coast of France, from 24 - 30 April 2011. Call for Papers is still open until 30 April 2010. You can find more information about ISEND 2011 Europe on the website http://www.isend2011.com.


 - And don't forget the Textile Forum Call for Papers and registration!

The long-time readers here will maybe remember that a good while ago, I posted about finding somebody who could make a gold thread like it was used in the 12th century, and trying to guess the market for that.

I think I never really gave you an update on all that. Well, I did decide to take the plunge and put in an order for the gold thread, and meanwhile it has been all produced and should be on its way here shortly - just in time to make a few nice little goldwork packets for Freienfels.

The company who makes the gold thread is one of the last few left of that kind, and they have an impressive workshop, as you can see in this little documentary film (in French) that ran on TF1, a french "journal" tv show. If you don't understand French, watch it anyways, you're in for a treat if you like old(ish) weaving looms and textile machines!

The snow has been all gone here for a few days now, and the temperatures are high enough to go out without a jacket on the warmer days. Most of all, the garden shows spring growth, and we are totally curious to see what perennials and what flower bulbs our predecessors have left us.

I planted a few tulip bulbs in December, just after we moved in here, and there are some more plants coming out now that were left in from before. Crocuses and snowdrops grow on the side lawn (not many of them, though), but mostly, the stretches of flower beds that surround the path to the house and the front lawn are empty. Which means that we will be doing some planting this year - some plants for the eyes with nice leaves and nice blossoms; some plants for the nose, with good scent; some plants for the palate, to use as herbs or as herbal teas; some for the bees and bumble-bees to feed, and some plants that I just fancy having in the garden, like mandrake and madder. And we hope to get the garden set up with plants hardy enough to prosper year after year, and enough of the growth to keep the weeds down and the beds nice...

This little blog of mine has gained enough importance to slowly become a target for spammers, it seems. Because spam-type comments have turned up only very seldom in the past, I have never voiced any spam-comment policy, but I feel that it is time now to do so.

If you have tried to comment on an older post, you will have found that comment moderation is enabled. Fresh posts can be commented on without moderation (pun intended), but screening comments makes it easier for me to nip a multi-post comment spam attack in the bud (there were about two of these already, and cleaning them up takes time and gets on my nerves in a major way).

As to the rest... I feel that freedom of speech is an important thing, and I also think that the internet is a very good and very valuable platform to say (write, that is) what you mean, feel, and think. However, I also feel that a blog post and its comments are something like a conversation between blog author and commenters, and if I'm standing around in real life chatting with a bunch of people about, say, ice cream flavours and discussing their impact on the environment and somebody suddenly starts to praise an ice cream factory that is known to mine the last glaciers, grand-style, for ice, or suddenly intrudes on the conversation with a speech about how we should all convert to the Church of the Holy Spaghetti Monster and dress up like pirates AT ONCE... I would feel quite pissed off.

And since these spammers are just delivering their bit and turn away again at once, it isn't even possible to start discussing them into the ground about how mining these last glaciers is the worst thing ever, and so on.

So here's the official comment policy: Comments are more than welcome, whether they agree with me or disagree with me, as long as there is some connection to the blog post they belong to. Unsolicited advice on what, where or how to buy something, product placement including unrelated blog or website placements*, buy-here links and other spam-type comments whether religious or not, will be deleted from my blog. Abusive comments may also be deleted. Comments are moderated for older posts to screen out the bad eggs before they turn up, saving you from disappointment after you click to see the new comment.

That's it. Now... comments, anyone?

* Pointing out a website or blog that is related to the topic of the blog post, or to the general topic of the blog is very welcome, of course!