Back home from talking two days non-stop

Today's blog is a little later than usual, because I came home rather late from the Lamboy-Fest in Hanau. In case you are living in the Hanau area, I can tell you: it's well worth a visit. A colourful, beautiful street festival with music, walking acts (creative and fun walking acts with stunningly beautiful costumes) and loads of exquisite international food. And, of course, we added our "mobile museum" to the scene, on a totally well-suited location. Our "artisan's market square" was on the little square in front of the Goldschmiedehaus in Hanau, right inside the Lamboy-Fest area and yet separated enough by the change of city topography to be something special.

We had lots and lots of visitors, and I found myself either drinking, eating, or talking, demonstrating (again) making of medieval hairnets. Filet, I find, is very well suited for demonstrating medieval textile stuff, because it catches people's eyes and makes them linger. And then they are mine to talk to! (Insert maniacal laughter here.) But I also had quite a few talks and explanations about medieval sewing and garments - and a lot of visitors asked me whether there are any customers for my filet work nowadays. Which was a wonderful opening for me to explain about textiles as status symbols and that most people today will decide in favor of the modern status object when deciding whether to invest the sum (about 700 Euros upwards) in a medieval knotted hairnet or in Gucci sunglasses, a new-fangled TV, a new computer, a pair of designer jeans, you go on with the list. And that to my regret, knotted hairnets usually lose this contest today - while in the middle ages, there would have been many more customers!

And isn't that a nice way to drive the importance of medieval textiles home to unsuspecting visitors?