It really is amazing how much time a single small macro can gobble up.

Especially if, when you are almost through, you decide that the process might be even better suited to the aims if done a little differently. Because it does make a difference whether you run a median filter first, or whether you filter out outliers first, or make a transformation to binary first and run filters later on.

Anyways, I now have a method to turn a scan of thread samples like this:

into this:


and then read out the thread thickness of every single one of these threads.

Now I only need to wrangle the gazillions of datapoints into something resembling histograms or some other form of legible visualisation. And be amazed again at how much time a single little spinning experiment can eat.

Experimental Archaeology is cool. About as cool as the Internet, I would say - there are so many questions about our history still unanswered, and quite a few of them are suitable for designing an archaeological experiment around them.

Plus it's absolutely exhilarating to try out things and find out things at the same time - even if the trying out and finding out involves lengthy mind-numbing and tedious work. (It's a scientific method, after all - you don't get only the fun of doing, you get the work of analysing too.)

And then, impressive things can happen. Plus a successful archaeological experiment is almost always of interest for the public - so it also helps getting people understand how varied and interesting and yet unknown the past is. Case in point? This article here, exploring old alcoholic beverages reconstructed from organic residue in vessels.

Here's to archaeology - cheers!

A while ago, I wrote a teaser post about a plying technique that I wanted to write about - and then I almost forgot I promised you a follow-up post.

While most of the ladies on medieval images have a long distaff that clearly holds fibres, like this:

Psalter of Fecamp. Ca. 1180. From Petzold, Andreas. Romanische Kunst, art in context. Köln: Dumont, 1995, p. 97.

and some fewer ones have a short distaff that also clearly holds fibres, like this:

Detail from Giotto: Annunciation to St. Anna. Scrovegni-Chapel, Padua. 1300-1320. From Flores d'Arcais, Francesca. Giotto. New York: Abbeville, 1995, p. 150.

something about this picture has always sort of tickled the back of my brain.

Young woman, Pseudo-Apuleius, 13th century. Vienna, Österreichische Nationalbibliothek, Cod. Vind. 93. From Kotzur, Hans-Jürgen. Hildegard von Bingen 1098-1179. Mainz: Verlag Philipp von Zabern, 1998, p. 336.

It's not the usual what she's holding; it's clearly a shorter distaff than usual, and the form of the stuff on the distaff is very clearly defined, very spindle-shaped and not fibery-looking at all.

Let's jump to another topic: the problem of plying. I don't know how well you manage to spin the same amount of length on two spindles or spools - I don't manage so very well; there's always some of the yarn left on one side when the other side has already run out. There's a theoretically very easy way to avoid this, though: To fold the yarn spun in half (from one single spindle, spool, or cop) and ply it with itself. When there isn't a foulup, you end up with a neat two-ply with no singles left.

There are different instructions on the 'Net on how to ply from a center-pull ball, and there's also the Andean Plying Bracelet which both are means to achieve the desired end-result: a skein of single folded in half and plied up. Both involve re-winding the spun yarn from the bobbin of a spinning wheel (where it's an absolute necessity) or from a spindle.

Me, I'm lazy. I like to be lazy. I promote winding spindles in a special way so that I can, after spinning, just slide that cop of yarn off the spindle onto a slim bit or stick of wood or so for storage. (Chopsticks, by the way, work fine.) And the way that I wind my yarn results in a stable, spindle-shaped cop of yarn that is essentially something not too unlike a center-pull ball. So I tested plying directly from the  cop (transferred to a slim stick) onto the spindle... and it works, and very very well too.

There's me doing it...

... and a close-up with a slightly different hand position that occurs quite frequently during the process.


So... here's a method that is efficient, easy to use, will result in no waste of yarn singles, and does not require extra tools (you can use a spindle stick to ply from). And I'm hooked on this new technique.

There's this half-joking rule for IT guys and programmers that goes:

If you have a job to do and need to find out how long it will take, do the following.
Estimate the length of time you will need to do the job. Now take that number and increase it to the next number of magnitude - minutes into hours, hours into days, days into weeks and so on.
Now you add three. That's how long it will take.

Maybe I should start to use this rule as a hard-and-steady rule for my work stuff - like getting the webpage overhauled (well, yes, that did go on hiatus for quite a while), the online shop running (I didn't realise how much Holy Saint Bureaucracius would need to be revered) or the Spinning Experiment all wrapped up.

Ah, the Spinning Experiment. Yes, the results have been found and the paper is in the processing; but I have one thing left to do with the data, and that is cleaning it up a little, translating some of the extra info into English and then packing it up nicely for everyone to download from the Forum webpage. And for that, I need to sort through the yarn cop photos.

I took at least three photos from each sample, and I will just upload one, the best one regarding light and contrast. So I need to pick out those that should be uploaded, resize them a bit and then pack them into a .zip file. And that's still left to do. Sometimes I'm really, really amazed at how much time that Experiment gobbled up... though I'd do it again, it has been totally worth it.

And sometime soon, you will get a note on this blog that the data is up...

Somehow, the time this year flies like crazy - I just realised that it is almost Ascension Day. There was a bunch of things that I had planned to finish before the long weekend that this induces... but I will probably not manage all of them.

That greenish blackboard is looking a bit less green and more black today, thanks to a bunch of things to do finished since Friday (and thus vanished from the board). On the list for today is packing a bunch of files and sending them off: the article about the spinning experiment results is finished, and I'll give it a last once-over before getting it to its destination.

Associated with this, I am planning to put all the experiment data online so that everybody interested can download the results and do additional research, develop theories, or - in case of the spinners  - see how their spinning looks on a survey card. I have to go over the database for this and make sure that everything is in there that should be in and that nothing is in there that shouldn't, and that will probably need another few days. You will hear about it on this blog, of course.

Spinning experiment work, here I come again!

Thank goodness it works again!

Yesterday's stint without the 'Net was not too bad, since I was able to work without the usual distractions. Plus, not reading or answering mails and not blogging did make itself noticeable in the time available for other stuff.

On the other hand, I do rely on the 'Net for some routine things, like checking translations or finding the best English word with the help of online dictionaries (I can type much faster than I can leaf through a paper dictionary) or explanations for stuff that I need to read up on (like, to take one of yesterday's examples, the definition of standard deviation). So I'm guessing that the time loss and the time gain probably even out for me.

And the reason for me to look up standard deviation? I'm working on a final write-up of the spinning experiment results, and trying to find the best way to visualise the different results and connections (or non-connections) to make it all understandable for the non-spinning reader. The article is planned for the conference proceedings of last year's OEGUF conference and might even appear in electronic format - I'm looking forward to see what medium will be chosen!

The old year 2010 (can you believe it's almost over already?) is yet bringing something new, and a very, very exciting thing to boot: Last Friday saw the ground-breaking ceremony for a laboratory and workplace especially for Experimental Archaeology in Mayen.

Mayen is a city in the volcanic Eifel region in Germany, with a long history as an economic centre. Nowadays, the region is visited for the very special landscape that still shows volcanic activity. And now it will gain a new attraction, at least for experimental archaeologists: The Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology aims to provide the infrastructure and logistics for experiments that are difficult to run otherwise, with different workspaces and proper laboratories to make first analyses. I think that sounds like heaven, and I am very happy that a project like this has now officially taken off and is being built!

If you understand German (or are interested anyway), you can see a TV report about the ground-breaking on the TV Mittelrhein homepage; the report about the lab starts at 8:35. It's only about two minutes long, and you can see how cold (and thus hard) the ground already was for the ceremonial use of spade and shovel. The building is scheduled for official opening next summer, and I hope the hard winter that has been forecast will not delay the process!