...coffee and cake, and not just in form of a digital image, which I provide to you here from my very large stack of digital images: 

This is exactly what I would like to have now, and what I am looking forward to, as soon as I have sent out the last emails for the session planning for the Forum. Phew.

The cake in the image, by the way, is a Nürnberger Snitte, or at least my version of it. Basically it's the Danish Hindbaersnitte (raspberry thingie) on steroids- it's not just pastry dough, raspberry jam, pastry dough and a layer of sugar-raspberry icing, it replaces the icing with vanilla buttercream and a layer of marzipan.

They are... delicious. Can very much recommend.

Finished the cloak for the Oswald figure, pondered 14th and early 15th century male underwear, cuddled the cat, worked on the Textile Forum website update (test run went well, now the proper one will come as soon as the current newsletter is out completely), had a chat with an old friend (during lunch and while working on the Oswald buttons), and that's about it, I think.

Now there is really not much left before tackling the hose and doublet/tunic for the figurine... 

My colleague and friend Berit died, after a sudden illness, on September 20. She was delightfully enthusiastic, always excited to learn new things, and more than happy to pass that excitement and enthusiasm on to others. I will miss her sorely, as a friend, as a wonderful colleague, as a sister in scheming things textile to do, and as a companion for having that celebratory cake and coffee after a conference we attended together. There's an obituary linked to on this site from her uni.

I still cannot believe it. We had plans to do things together, and I had plans to visit her when I'd be up north next, and now she's just... gone. Go give your loved ones a hug, and your friends a call. Life is fragile, and there is no guarantee you'll have them next year. 

If you have a textile find, it's sometimes possible to extract the dyestuff used for dyeing it. The instruments and technique have been refined more and more over the last decade or two, but there's still a problem: Knowing which dyestuff combination comes from which plant. 

A lot of things will dye some kind of yellow, so if you have yellow, it doesn't mean you know which plant it was. In analysis reports, this can then turn up as "yellow x". There's a similar issue with red, where it's not always known what was the origin of a red dye that was detected.

The Danish National Museum is now going on a citizen science quest to try and find those elusive colour suppliers, and they are looking for dyers willing to collect, document, and send in their dye sample. The project runs until October 2027, which is when all samples should have arrived in Denmark.

If you are interested and would like to know more, you can find it here on the museum's website. 

Things happening here? 

First important action of the day was going with the little cat for a vet checkup. We'll get the results of the blood check once the vet has them, and hopefully they will be okay. Renal values were a little worse last time than before, and we hope it has stabilised. We're also to give her eye drops now twice daily to prevent more issues with her eye deteriorating. She's blind already, or practically blind (it's hard to tell, we are not getting good answers on the "where does the mouse tail point on this board if you look here" questions) but I have learned today that there can also be troublesome changes inside the eye, and these need to be watched out for. The things you learn.

Also there's work going on for a workshop that I will give in October, apart from the ongoing "make clothes for Oswald". The hood is done, though I want to do a few more try-on tests to see if it fits our interpretation; the cloak is also almost done and needs a few more centimetres of seam and then the button closure. So the parts left are the hose and the tunic/pourpoint, which means I'll soon run out of the easy things and have to tackle the interesting bits. 

The figure itself then has to be dressed at some point, which will be rather interesting, as he is heavy and, of course, not as flexible and especially not as cooperative as a human being.

Most photos from the trip have been sorted by now, and I have also started sorting out a programme for the Textile Forum. There's one more workshop to prepare for right after the Forum, which means everything should be all done, dusted, and packed up when I leave for the Week of Madness. 

I'm back home from a lovely trip, and I did get to see a lot of medieval fabrics. I went with a friend to Halberstadt (to see the birds on fabrics exhibition), to visit Quedlinburg, and we had a look at things in Magdeburg as well. Last minute I decided to take the camera,  and the extra weight was well worth it - I have a nice bunch of lovely photos of things now.

Because I was running out of time, I did not take photos in Magdeburg Cathedral, which I somehow regret a little now - but then that's maybe an excuse to return some day.

We did manage, however, to get a very nice close look at some knotted fringes in preparation for the Textile Forum, so I would count the whole trip as a full success.

I'm off for a little study trip with a friend, so there will be no blogging during the next week! 

The exhibition in Halberstadt is beckoning,  and I will be following the call. We'll be having a look at some other textiles here and there, while we're in the area, so I will be back on the blog on Monday, September 28.