That was a really pleasant, wonderful and relaxing weekend - spent mostly at home, doing necessary things for the medieval gear (like cleaning and shining shoes and washing textile stuff) at a leisurely pace, eating yummy things (like really tasty asparagus and strawberry cream cake), reading and doing some fun weaving.

The fun weaving is in preparation for a tablet weaving workshop, scheduled for August. The workshop is meant to teach people already experienced with threaded-in patterned tablet weaves how to do free patterning and double-faced weaves in twill structure, by showing the underlying mechanics of the weaving process. And in preparation of this, I'm weaving a "play-band". A band like that - used for playing around with different turning techniques and developing patterns - is what we'll weave in the workshop, to each her (or his) own play-band.


The warp I made for my preparation thing is relatively thick, plied silk yarn in red and off-white. I used the opportunity to try some patterns I had drafted from other bands before proper playing, but the hours yesterday were spent with fun combining of turning sequences, pattern pieces and twill. The thing I like most about play-bands? First of all, there are no real mistakes. You can just do things. The worst that can happen is that either you get totally blown away pattern-wise and have to turn the tablets back into starting sequence, or that you end up on the back of the band with your pattern. Then you can either tablet-turn your way up again or you just flip the band and go on where your pattern has gone to. And occasionally, there's a real nice pattern piece in the sequences that turns up by chance... and on a play-band you can take the time and space to isolate this pattern bit by placing it on a twill background.

And I had an obscene amount of fun yesterday weaving this pattern bit:



Guess which of these three will win the race?

After sleeping a little longer to make up for the lack of naps during the long weekend, I'm almost done with catching up on my mail and other backlog of stuff.

Freienfels was fine, with very good weather - lots of sunshine, and pretty warm during the day. I met and talked with lots of nice people, both visitors and participants, and met some folks that I only knew by name face to face for the first time. The only downside was the place of my tent/stall - right behind the stage, with a lot of very, very loud music. Since I'm mostly an info stall (workshop possibilities and, most important this year, book promotion for my thesis), music so loud that you have to shout to your visitors is not really helpful.

Still, I'm content. Now there's the usual post-event work to do: Sort out all the stuff, clean and wash what has gotten dirty, put the ordered things away again, and so on and so on. In my case, I'm also planning to build a proper stall for presenting on markets, since our tent is very nice, very practical to sleep in, but not suited to presenting clothes and textiles to people...

There are things, persons, occurrences on markets like that last weekend that really warm the heart or make you see again why you sit and explain how something works for two days in a row, telling the same tales a hundred times.

One was the lady stopping by again on the second day. On Saturday, she'd seen my bone awl that I use for making eyelet holes and asked for an explanation, since she had one at home but didn't know what it was for. We also chatted about netting needles and tatting, since she described a tatting shuttle to me, asking what it could have been for.
On Sunday, she came to show me the tools we had talked about - and said that since she would not use the netting needles nor the tatting shuttle, she's giving them to me. So I came back from the market with three more textile tools - at least two of them very hard to get.

She made me very happy with these absolutely unexpected presents - and helped me to learn more about the size, form and shape of industrially produced modern (but not really contemporary) netting needles.


The other was the little girl whom the spinner brought over from the spinning booth with the words "And look here, the weaver - that's where the finished thread goes." So she got handed to the weaver for an explanation and demonstration of weaving on a four-shaft loom, and then she came over to me to look at clothes.
After showing her some seams and some garments, I took out a piece of fine silk cloth and explained that even cloth so fine as this was all worked by hand - and then I told her to imagine how long that must take, all those superfine threads, all made and then woven... and she stood in front of my tent for, oh, two minutes, looking totally stunned and saying no more than "Oh. Wow. Oh." while trying to get a grasp on this gigantonormous amount of time and work.

Little lady: Thank you. You really made my day by listening and thinking about what we demonstrated. Seeing you so awed makes me very, very happy.

Bad Staffelstein, a town in Franconia, has a yearly festival called the Altstadtfest. This year's date is the 25th and 26th July.

Historical Craftsmanship and historical crafts are the focus of this event. And I'm proud and happy to announce that I will be there on Sunday, July 26, in the Raiffeisen-Bank Bad Staffelstein, showing textile techniques from the Middle Ages. This is also the opening day for an exhibition in the rooms of the bank, where some of my pieces will be shown. The exhibition will probably stay for two weeks after the opening.

So... should you have nothing planned yet for the 26th of July, drop by and meet me in Bad Staffelstein!

I'm back home, the car is standing outside still half-packed, and it won't be emptied out since we're leaving for Freienfels on Wednesday.

I had the most wonderful weekend, with lots of utterly nice people - some that I already knew, some that I had briefly met before, and some that I hadn't seen beforehand. And the weather was glorious. And the coffee was soooo good.

The market - part of a market/festival in Großauheim - was on a small parking lot with some trees to give us shade, and it took the public some time to find us. Hence, Sunday was much better visited than Saturday.

Lucky me stood between a tablet weaver and a weaver who brought his loom (to weave linen diamond twill, no less), and when he didn't sit behind his loom, he sat with me and we chatted (or rather, I babbled and he sat and listened). Then there were the shows given by Firlefanz - I managed to escape from my net (which I was working on) to watch for a bit, and I nearly fell off my seat with mirth! I'm sorry that I didn't catch more (I'll try to do better next time I see them). And I even got to dance once each day, it's been ages since my last dancing on a market or fair.

To top off all this wonderfulness, I sold some thread, some gold thread and some of the beading needles I brought, and people took info brochures both for myself and for the forum. And a few more people got onto the newsletter for my book. So I'm sitting here a very happy woman today...

I'm back from my little trip abroad - I went to Ireland for a little more than a week, going to the Borderlines XIII conference and then having a few days more in Dublin.

The conference was neither as international nor as interdisciplinary as I had hoped, but good fun and very informative, as I now know a gazillion more Middle English than before (gone straight up from "none at all" to "I can understand some simple words"); learnt that the same differences between archaeologists' and literature-ists' papers exist in Germany and in Ireland; found that there is so much still to learn; got the distinct impression that I should really try to read some Chaucer one of these days; discovered that Irish saga background is really different from Middle European background; learnt where the Liffey and the Puddle flowed together in the old town of Dublin; finally understood why my "Celtic-style knotwork" always ended up with one crossing out of pattern and a few more odds and ends. Sadly, I was not really fit as with an appalling bout of bad timing, I caught a head-cold straight before leaving for Ireland and thus felt like I had cotton wadding inside my skull instead of a brain for the first one and a half days.

After the conference, I got to see the book of Kells, the Georgian Town House Museum(Number 29), the National Museum, the Collin's Barracks (second part of the National Museum), Phoenix Park, the Botanical Gardens, and the innards of several bookstores and supermarkets. I ended up with a few photos (though sadly, most of the Irish museums seem to have a strict no-photo policy), a few bars of Cadbury's chocolate, some other odds and ends and a few books, both work and non-work.

Alltogether, I'd say the trip was well worth it (even though Ireland seems exceedingly expensive to me) - the visit to the National Museum alone was so good that in retrospect, I'd have travelled for that. Should you get the chance, go see the wonderful hairnets they have, made of silk thread so thin that you'd think it is one single fine human hair; or the small bit of gold brocade tabletweave from Viking Dublin; or the wonderful bog garments, dating to the 17th century but showing stunning parallels to diverse medieval garments. And I should also add that the museum staff I met were all extremely nice and extremely helpful, and the visit to the museum is free (though the cakes in the museum café are enormously expensive).

It was, in short, a wonderful trip, but I'm thoroughly happy to be back home again now. Not least because I really missed the home-cooked food and the fresh fruit out of our grocery box - somehow, even a freshly-made sandwich just can't keep up with, say, a pie with turkey breast, fresh carrots, onions, sprouts and a cream sauce with fresh parsley. And an apple for dessert.

The official Call for Papers for the Textilforum is now out, and a copy is up at our website.

Whether you are researching a textile project involving the craft aspects, working in textile restauration or a professional dyer, tablet weaver or spinner using historical textile techniques, go over there and send us some info about you, your work and a proposal for a paper or presentation. We also need a few more people to take part in the Spinning Experiment, so if you are a seasoned hand spindle spinner, you can use the form to tell us, too. The experiment time (spinning time of 10 hours) will be spaced over five days, so a bit more than two hours each morning will be spinning experiment time, and time for your own disposal after that.

And if you know somebody who might be interested, please pass on the information!