It's hard to believe that it's blogiversary day again, and that this blog is now another year older. I'd never have imagined that it would stay an almost (work-)daily part of my life for so long when I started it back in... let me check... 2008.

So - happy 12th birthday, Blog! There might be some bit of celebratory cake this afternoon here, because any excuse is good for having cake. This certainly counts as one. And you, as a reader of this, are obviously also provided a reason to have cake, too. Having to celebrate this blogiversary, and so on.

So... thank you for reading, and for commenting here! It is always delightful to get comments, to know that the things here are being read and that some of them are proving useful.

By the way - do you have any favourite birthday cake recommendations?

 

Three things I've recently discovered:

There's a project called Thefbo, looking at the textile crafts from prehistory at Lake Constance and Upper Swabia. They even have a blog, in German and English, so you can have a look at what they are up to (which included some retting of linden bast fibres last year).

Also having a blog: Stadtarchäologie Wien (Vienna City Archaeology) - this one's only in German, though. Clicking the link will bring you directly to an article about a woven band (with metal threads).

Third thing, having nothing to do with textiles: There's a website called toogoodtogo.com, and the people behind it would like to reduce the food waste that happens, on a very regular basis, in restaurants, bakeries, and food shops. Basically, you can sign up and then buy a packet of leftover food using the corresponding app for your phone; you pay a small amount of money (which means this reduces the loss the business makes) and get food that is too good to go to waste for rather little money. I've not tested this (yet!), but find it a brilliant idea. After all, this way, everybody wins - the environment, because there's less waste; the business, as they make less loss; and the customer, as they get a surprise food package for a good price. Toogoodtogo is available in several countries; you can check out if yours is among them on their website.

I'm almost through the incredible link backlog - so here's the last drop for now:

If you are looking for a new way to practice your early Mesopotamian writing skills, you might want to bake some cuneiform cookies.

Here's an article about the sequence of adjectives in English - a "crazy grammar rule".

A list of sheep breeds (though there's not much information about many of them, especially not much information about the wool).

Speaking of wool, Hakai Magazine has a nice article about the importance of wool for the vikings.

Jonathan Jarrett has posted a book review about "Debunking History" by Ed Rayner and Ron Stapley.

And that finally clears my list. I hope there was something enjoyable among the links for you!

Can you guess what has accumulated during the last two weeks? Right. Links. Lots and lots of links about various topics... which means my browser has so many tabs open right now that it even scares me (and I'm nigh-undauntable by lots of open tabs).

So, here you go, in no particular order whatsoever:

A (short) history of pockets in women's clothing.

What archaeologists say about Trump's election. (Text of the post on Archaeologik is in German, but the links point to English pages.)

A 3D-Model of the medieval mikvah in London.

Aarhus Uni Press has Danish Medieval Castles as their free e-book of the month.

The Importance of Being Scared: An article about fairy tales and fear.

And that's it for today - more linky things tomorrow!

It's been a while since I posted links to German things here, but a few have stacked up, and I find them too interesting to pass them all by. So if you have German (or trust in machine translation), here you go:

Aisling writes about swastika ornaments in Viking tabletweaving. There's quite a few people using this ornament in their garments etcetera, reasoning that it was "just an ornament" in Viking times. Well, let's say that going for this kind of ornament in German Living History/Reenactment is always a slightly peculiar choice. Especially since, as Aisling points out in her blog article, there are actually very, very few of these swastika ornaments actually used in tabletwoven bands.

Niko has posted a tutorial on how to make a medieval belt. With lots of pictures, so it might be interesting even if your German is not good.

A book by the Limburg Brothers (best known for the Tres Belles Heures du Duc de Berry) has turned up in Nijmegen - causing a little sensation. (Pictures here, too.)

Let me start this week by giving you two links to spend lots of time looking at stuff!

Firstly, Doug has posted a number of videos from Scotland's Community Heritage Conference in 2015. Topics range from community projects and landscape projects to surveying, and there's even a "minute of madness" short video.

Non-moving pictures, but lots of them, and lovely ones of sewing work are in Sarah A Bendall's post about her reconstruction of the Elizabeth I effigy bodies - cutting and sewing. If you like to look at hand-sewing, or are interested in early modern stays, or both, you should not miss that post!