It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when things come to happen, they do it in masses.

Ahead of me are three-and-a-half very full weeks, where I'm mostly away from home, doing things - giving workshops, holding presentations, doing museum inventory work, and, to balance out the work, having a few days off with the Most Patient of All Husbands inbetween. (I'm quite sure they will be needed...)

It's wonderful and exhilarating to be off and about and among people once more, though I admit I'm also a little anxious about this. There's still a pandemic happening, even though it is getting easier to ignore it all the time. I have masks, though (really well-fitting for a change, I'm quite amazed) and have just tested negative (something the Spinntreffen organisers were asking for, to self-test before going there), and I hope that I will have a sufficiently effective combination of being sensible and being lucky.

At the moment, I'm in the last bits of prep for the Spinntreffen of the Handspinngilde this weekend, and that means packing the car, printing out lists, and finishing putting together the workshop tools and materials. So once this post is done, I will hop out into the garden and cut some willow and hazel rods to serve as bow looms.

If you're interested in my presentation for the Hansemuseum Lübeck and the FGHO, it will be streamed live on YouTube on October 11, starting at 18:00. There's also still tickets available for those of you who prefer to be right in the room with me in Lübeck.

I will be back on the blog on October 24, when all my away missions are done and I'm back home - and I hope you will have a good time until then!

Sorry for the blog silence yesterday - I had a very full day, and then I managed to eat something that did not agree with my inner plumbings at all. I'm still recovering, so it's taking it easy for the rest of today (the little cat being a very good model on how to nap inbetween).

Tomorrow I'll be off to a workshop on embroidery, organised by the wonderful people of EuroWeb - Europe Through Textiles.  The week after that has already been scheduled for some time off, as there's a public holiday on Thursday, making it predestined for an extra-long weekend.

So I'll be back on the blog on Monday, May 30. If you're looking for something to watch in that time, you might want to check out the conference recording from EuroWeb - Clothing Identities, here on their Youtube channel.

I'm back from the Vienna trip, and it was wonderful - giving a presentation in front of actual living, breathing human beings just is different from giving an online-only presentation. Though I am certainly delighted that the presentation was hybrid, that made it possible for a good number of other people to join in.

There were questions afterwards, and then there was the "Post-Kolloquium" which is the official moniker for "have a meal and some drinks together". It's been forever since I've been at a social like that and that, too, was wonderful.

On the next day, I got to meet up with some colleagues to have a look at a spectacular Bronze Age gold textile, or what's left of it, which is only the gold threads. Interesting debates were had about it, and I got to play a little with some of the testing textiles and give some input, and then there was time for a museum visit before we met up again for dinner.

Some more sightseeing was added in before we went home (the Most Patient Husband went along for the ride), there was bouldering at a Viennese gym (which sort of counts as sightseeing as well), way too much coffee, lots of delicious foods of all kinds, and a lot of rides on diverse public transport vehicles. I'm especially enamored with the Viennese Underground, as there are some sections where it goes overground, with very nice views, and even nicer stations designed by Otto Wagner, a famous architect. These stations are part of the cultural heritage and still in use, so you get to ride modern trains to historical buildings, built in a style that I like very much.

Using public transport this weekend had an added benefit: the vehicles are all heated. It got very cold in Vienna over the weekend, especially on Saturday and Sunday - there was even snow, and not just a few flakes, but enough for it to stay on rooftops and trees. Brrrr!

Now it's back to the desk for the more mundane everyday tasks... though there is the next presentation to prepare, for a workshop coming up towards the end of April. 

I'm still feeling a bit queasy about travelling, and meeting up with a lot of people within a short period of time; it's so different from the pandemically mostly secluded life that we have here, and that I've gotten so (maybe too) used to in the last two years. So I hope we haven't caught anything on our trip, and we plan to get a test today and in a few days again. 

As a side note regarding the pandemic: Rules in Austria are similar to those in Germany, which means that you will be allowed to take off your mask when in a restaurant and seated at the table. Which means that for the presentation, in the larger room with more air volume and lots of space for each person, everyone wore a mask... while those going to the post-colloqium were then seated at a small table, with little space between individuals, and in a much smaller room, not wearing a mask. I do get the rules, and I completely understand how these situations occur, but it's still sort of weird and makes the rules seem sort of haphazard...

It's time for something like a link roundup again - textile conference related, this time.

The CTR has their programme online for 2022, and there's a number of meetings and lectures that everybody can attend. Every second wednesday there is a meeting from 14:00 to 15:00 followed by a presentation with discussion starting at around 15:00. The next one is on March 16, about modeling public buyer behaviour towards circular textile products and services. Learn more about the lectures on the CTR page (click the lectures link to download the current pdf programme).

EuroWeb has a Call for Papers out for a seminar which will take place in Portugal, June 29 to July 1st. The seminar is titled "What's in a name? Toponyms and loan words as textile labels across time.". The CfP is open until April 15, and you can learn more about the seminar and find out how to take part here.

Springer is granting free access to some of their programme until March 31st - including some archaeology things. Find out more here.