The thing about a medieval-style Great Wheel? It's really Great, as in Large. Looking at images, the wheel appears to be really huge, compared to the spinners. And when one thinks about it, that is sort of understandable - after all, the aim is to get a lot of twist quickly, and there are no gears involved. So the size difference between the wheel and the disc on the spindle (often called whorl, but I find that confusing) has to be as large as possible.

When I built my reconstruction, I was thus looking for a size that would compare to the illustrations we have, and of course with a look at its intended use - demonstrations. Which meant it also had to come apart easily, and the single pieces had to fit into the car. 

Which they do. The wheel itself has its own special spot right under the roof, where it's built to fit perfectly:

The board end in the foreground belongs to the bottom (main) board. The rest is one box with the small pieces (like the wedges, drive band, and spindles) and one pack with legs and the holders for spindle and wheel. 

So now I just have to add the rest of the equipment, and we're ready to roll!

(Ingelheim. Sunday. See me there if you can, and say hello!)

 It's back from summer break and straight into action here - on the weekend, I will be going to Syke to show how a bronze age corded skirt was (probably) woven. I'll be demonstrating all day on Saturday and Sunday, and I'm looking forward to many questions!

I'm not sure where in the museum I will be, or whether I'll be sitting on a table or on the floor, but I will definitely wear no shoes for the weaving - I need my foot to hold the measuring stick and my little toe on one foot to keep hold of one of the loops for starting the next bunch of strings...

The event is running in the Kreismuseum Syke on Saturday from 10 -18 o'clock and on Sunday to 17 o'clock. There's going to be a bunch of demonstrators there, plus the museum itself is a very nice place to visit, so if you're up north and free for the weekend, don't miss it! 

You can find out more about the event on the homepage here: 

https://www.kreismuseum-syke.de/veranstaltungen/bronzezeittage/

If you're interested in clothing and understand German, there's a lecture series currently ongoing, organised by the Art History faculty in Vienna. There will be three presentations about clothes as items of daily life, the next one on Wednesday, November 15.

The presentations will be streamed via Zoom, and you can join in for free. You can find more information and the link on the website. 

If you'd like to watch the presentation I gave in Syke - here you go! It's all in German (sorry English-only speaking readers).

It wasn't possible to do a livestream, but I'm delighted that there was the possibility to make a recording, and put that online. I hope you'll enjoy it - I certainly did!

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!

I'm delighted to travel to the North again, for a presentation in Lübeck. The Forschungsstelle für die Geschichte der Hanse und des Ostseeraums are hosting a series of talks each year, and I have the pleasure and honour of starting off this year's series with a talk about the production of textiles and clothing in the era of the Hanse. That will be on October 11 - which means I've started working on the presentation. Writing and preparing these always takes a good chunk of time, and I like to have a few days to let ideas mature and settle in my brain inbetween; I find that this helps immensely.

You can find the full programme here; the talks are all in German. They are free to attend in-person in Lübeck, but you need to register for them due to restrictions on the number of people.

I'm very much looking forward to this already. There will be inside stories about making textiles - and probably a lot of moaning about what we don't know anymore. (The German term for inside stories is much funnier, by the way, especially in this context: it's "aus dem Nähkästchen plaudern". The literal translation for that is "to talk from inside the (sewing) workbasket".) I'm also planning to bring a distaff along, because, well, you can always use a distaff!