To my very great delight, the fig bush (tree would be rather generous) in front of our garage wall is actually bearing a good number of figs this year, and they (the late batch) are currently ripening - at least some of them. Now I only have to hold out long enough for the individual ones to really, fully, properly ripen... I've managed to pluck a few already that would have benefitted from a day or three longer on the branch. But, well, figs!

Also good, though I'm still not holding my breath: Apparently there is a German request for the EU to change regulations for the PPWR, including a moratorium on the authorised representative and Europe-wide thresholds for the small players. I am hoping this will go through, and we will finally have a sensible regulation. (Maybe some of the politicians have found out that some of their own preferred stuff is not coming anymore? Who knows. And actually, I don't really care why, as long as they arrive at a sensible solution!)

To my great delight (and relief), the Textile Forum 2026 is now coming together very nicely. I have a few unconfirmed things in the pipeline still, but I am hopeful that they will end up on the menu, too.

So far, we will be looking at heddle variations (with knots, that being our main topic); textile finishings; making passementerie-type items (and freehand! I am so looking forward to this!); going to have a try at doing ikat dyeing, and I am hoping that things will work out in a way here that I will be able to do a little workshop on filet netting. That is a lovely technique that I like very much, but it's also notoriously awkward to teach. The good news on it is that because there is one single knot that is repeated over and over and over, you only have to learn that one knot. The bad news is that it consists of a series of movements that have to be done exactly right, or the knot will not form properly, and you have to do the full series of movements, there's no good way to break it down into baby steps. So I have kind of a love-hate-relationship for teaching this (with the love prevailing, admittedly).

If you're curious (or if you want to join in), registration is open on the website of the Forum, textileforum.org, and there's also some space left for presentations or workshops!

If you have followed German news, you will know already that the AfD has gotten their highest results ever in the elections yesterday, making them the strongest party in Sachsen-Anhalt for the next years. This is going to make things... interesting, to say the least.

In the best case, the other parties will realise that it's getting really hairy now, get their shit together, team up and run the show at least in a mediocre-but-acceptable way. In the best case, some other politicians will also get their shit together and finally go for the Verbotsverfahren (to ban the whole party because it is, at least in large parts, confirmed right-wing-extremist and against the German constitution). In a not as good scenario, people will realise that they are enabling a shitshow here, and make better choices next time. In any case, even in the best ones, we'll have plenty of fallout.

The Worst Chancellor of All Times (at least according to surveys about how much he is appreciated, or not) is probably going to find some way to get the shit to the fan quicker, and the fan sped up. Well, well, well.

On a different but also not happy note, there's also discussion to make self-employed people here pay into the state pension. If you are a regular employee, you have to do that no matter what; the big difference being that as a regularly employed person, you are also getting a regular income in a known, fixed height, which is not the case for self-employed people. 

The idea behind this is, or so some of the reports tell us, to avoid solo entrepreneurs or other self-employed people running into monetary trouble in their pension age. At the moment, you have to care for your future yourself, so either you get rich enough just like so, or you pay into some private insurance. Or, as sadly happens quite a bit it seems, you ignore this and just, well, do nothing to prepare when you're old and cranky and maybe not able to work anymore.

So the basic idea is, if not noble, then at least understandable, and not superduperbad. The problem, though, is that the plan is to apply a fixed sum to pay monthly... and I am rather doubting that it will be a small sum. That comes on top of the obligatory health insurance, where you also pay a fixed sum in full each month. 

I am looking at this with more than a little doubt. It's already quite a stretch to go self-employed in Germany, this will add to the burden. At least it seems that it is to only apply to new startups, so I will probably not have to deal with this. (It would also be only of limited use, since the system means that you pay, and paying a certain amount per year gives you points, which in turn decide about how much you get as pension, with some more factors coming in. But the TL;DR is - if I'd start to pay in there now, I am a little late to the party, so I'd basically get very little back. Which means that that money would need to go on top of what I do as private insurance now. 

The thing is... I'm not sure that there'd be a different country where it would be significantly easier and so much nicer that moving there would be a really good decision. I have come to the conclusion that it's always easiest to see the shitty things and those going wrong in one's own country (well, except those that one is blind to, but that's another topic), and usually you're just not getting the nitty gritty from other places.

So. We will see. And hope. Because hope... well, it rarely hurts, right?

So if you wanted to know what I've been working on - it was this: 

... which is part of the dagging on the hood for Oswald. I'm not entirely happy with how dark the beeswax turns out on the edges, but I also didn't want to keep it entirely unsecured. Possibly it would be less obvious with a thicker fabric, or with less hot wax, but, well, it's going to stay this way now.

And this, by the way, is the collateral damage to my piece of support wood for making the scalloped edges:

Next step is finishing the face edge, and then putting the main piece and the liripipe together, and testing if it does look like in the image.  

When you study history in any context, it becomes clear rather quickly that, well, history tends to repeat itself. Mostly, if you ask me, because humans are human, both in the best and in the worst meaning of this.

If things are getting tough and scary and there's not enough to go on living as one did before, there's always a good chance that someone will get the idea that a war is the best solution for this. After all, it means you have a clear-cut enemy now who is, if in doubt, the reason for everything going wrong. Also one could just, well, take their stuff, since it's war. Easy way out. (Also a rather stupid way out in most cases, as it's not really a way out, but if you are reading this blog, I probably don't need to explain this to you.)

On the other hand, when something happens - a natural desaster, or a death in the family, or an illness, or another of the endless possibilities how one's life can be upturned - it can well be that friends and family and complete strangers suddenly stand there to help and support as best they can. There's been outpourings of help both financial and with time and labour after almost any catastrophe.

So where am I going with this article? Actually, I only wanted to write a preamble to this link to a rather, um, manly find from medieval Bryggen in Norway. Because some things, well, they just do not change, and that includes the wish to have some fun occasionally, and with help if necessary. Humans will be humans, and human ingenuity has never stopped at that, which the find is beautifully proving, in an anatomically correct and not too short way. (NSFW, just in case you haven't clicked on to this yet.)

Just in case you're looking for open source or free software for this and that occasionally, there's a list at beyondsoftware.info with programmes that might be of interest - ranging from an ad-free, privacy-focused email app for Android to a driver updater for Windows, and many things inbetween.

The first thing completely ready for the Oswald figurine are... the shoes. Which is mostly due to the fact that I asked for them straight away, and that agreeing on a type and style and the details did not take as long as searching fabrics and reconstructing patterns for several garments tends to take.

They arrived today, and they are absolutely wonderfully gorgeous. Also, they have a faint and lovely to my nose smell of fresh goat leather. 

Have I mentioned that they are utterly lovely? Though I confess I'm not too much looking forward on getting them onto the figure's feet, as they are a little hard to dress (I found that already with taking off and putting back on his normal modern shoes).