If you want to know what "it" is today, it's both the Call for Papers/Call for Workshops for this year's Textile Forum as well as the tent for the market stall.

Writing the call for takes so long because, well, there are quite a few changes in comparison to last year, and we don't want to give a wrong impression by hastily written information.

And making the tent... well, everybody who has ever planned the construction of a tent/stall and then sewn that tent by hand knows how long that can take. Add to this the additional problems and challenges popping up - like the waterproofing issue - and it's no wonder that progress is slow. But it is there. After taking a nice, hot bath


the tent fabric is now completely dry again, and today it's time to test the construction basics by putting up the "framework". Most of the connections for putting up the wooden part will be temporary and provisional, since the tent structure has no stand-alone, rigid framework, but relies on combining wood and fabric. But I need to get a proper, hands-on evaluation of how large the inner space will feel in the completed tent, and I also need to mark where to put diverse bits and pieces for the construction on the fabric. So up it must go.

I'm back from a wonderful and very fruitful weekend of planning for Textile Forum 2010 - and that weekend fully deserves to be titled a perk of the job.

We met with Johanna, the director of ArcheoParc Schnals, to have a good look at the premises, discuss planning details, have a look at the accommodation reserved for the Forum participants (real beds in en-suite rooms this time!), and meet some more people interested in the Forum idea.

So what can you expect? In case you have never been to Schnals in South Tyrol, let me give you the list.

A very nice museum with a unique concept, showing the connection between the alpine region and the lifestyle in this environment, with an intriguing architectural design?


Check.

An open-air area belonging to that same museum, with some outstanding house reconstructions that have no nails and screws in them?


Check.

Typical regional food that is amazingly, mouth-wateringly yummy? Like Schlutzkrapfen, Speckknödel and Vinschgauer Paarl with Brettlspeck, plus a huge variety of cheeses and wines that earn lots of praise? Food so wonderful that of course I was not even thinking of taking a photo, because I was busy with eating and enjoying?

Check.

(To make up for the lack of photos here, you can read this article from the Guardian. Or maybe you would like to prepare yourself for all the food of the region - go to this tourism site that also offers recipes!)


Lots of fun?


Check.

And last but surely not least, more breathtaking, amazing alpine scenery than you would be able to shake a spindle stick at?

Check.


Sounds good, eh?

There is a German proverb that says "Gut Ding will Weile haben", which translates roughly to "a good thing needs its time".

Well, it has taken time enough, the planning for the Textile Forum 2010, and we can finally announce a place and time where the second European Textile Forum will take place. From the 6th to the 12th of September 2010, the ArcheoParc Val Senales will turn into a meeting place for historical textile workers. It will again be possible to share knowledge, experiences and problems with other enthusiasts and finally discuss all things textile (almost) 24 hours a day, without your conversation partner's eyes glazing over due to boredom. There will again be lodging with full board for the participants, keeping everyone fed and thus free to concentrate on the important thing only - talking and doing textile stuff.

We are working on the preliminary programme and will keep you updated - via the blog here, the Textile Forum Website and the Forum Newsletter. Stay tuned for more information on the programme, practical things and the Call for Papers!

During the Forum week, we of course chatted about all kinds of things (though most of them fibre-related), and of course there were requests to share this or that link or site.

So here's the Brain Test, my part - let's see if I can remember what I was supposed to.

First of all, of course, there's Phiala's String Page (where I made my first braiding steps many years ago) and where the now-famed and coveted pdf about tablet weave structures may be found. The accompanying talk lit quite a few lightbulbs in tablet weavers' heads!

There's a video on Youtube I talked about - no, wait, there's more. First there are the two wonderful and calming videos showing short-draw and long-draw spinning by Ruth MacGregor that I linked already here. (At the Forum, I had the joy of getting taught long-draw by Ruth herself. I can now spin thick and fluffy yarn, hooray and huzzah! And Ruth in person is even more calm and friendly than her videos suggest.) Then there's the incredibly speedy weaving on an inkle loom, to be found here.

Then there was mention of the Tsarina of Tsocks. If anyone can tempt me to add knitting to my stash of textile techniques, it is her with her incredibly beautiful socks! There's also a blog where she writes about tsocks (who would have guessed?)

Another thing I frequently mentioned to several persons (mainly day-guests and visitors, though) is Therèse de Dillmont's book. If you have not yet found out about it, go visit the webpage where the whole book (in the English version) is available for free!


Oh, and I am also supposed to put up pictures of the event (and the spinning) on the Textilforum website, send around the list of adresses of the participants and analyse and evaluate the data from the experiment. Which will all happen, and soon.

I took the day off yesterday (well, mostly) and had a wonderfully relaxing time just reading, snacking, relaxing and napping, so now my wakefulness-levels are almost normal again.

Now that I'm in the quiet of my own little study again (crammed full with the boxes of the experiment), I really start to miss the chatter and bad jokes and friendly banter and "string talk" of last week. And slowly I realise that the Textilforum has indeed taken place, that we really did it, that the experiment was really wildly successful, and that I have a heap of things to remember the wonderful week by, including my first ever badge for making a fire without more than two matches (heehee! All that training was worth it!), the most ugly cardboard-piggybank ever made by man or woman (and a very well-fed one at that, thanks to the generous people at the Forum) and the now-famed cat timer that usually resides on my workdesk but had taken a venture out and did some important work in the spinning experiment.

There are already some pictures online at Phiala's blog, summing up nicely all the things that went on, including the silliness. Here's a random picture taken during the spinning experiment (they are not sorted yet, of course...):

I arrived back home from Eindhoven yesterday evening, after a week of all things good and fibrey (or stringy). More than a hundred of spindles were spun upon, masses of tablets turned, waffles and chocolate eaten, large quantities of coffee and tea consumed, and laughter and fun abounded.

The Textilforum was everything I had hoped and wished for: A meeting place for craftspeople and scientists, a place to chat and exchange knowledge and personal experiences with different historical techniques, to network and have fun together, a place to do some shopping for textile-crafts-related things and tools that cannot be found just everywhere, and an opportunity to have some nice, juicy bits of science that requires more than just one or two skilled craftspersons. So overall, a complete success, and I am sure that every visitor to the Forum also went home with something new and delightful learned.

For the experiment, I had the joy and privilege of working together with fifteen wonderful spinners to generate a really large dataset that will help a lot for researching spinning and spindle whorls in the future. This dataset and lots of number-crunching from it will probably keep me on my toes for the next few days and weeks, but the data already looks very, very promising. The first results were already presented to the spinners and lecture audience on Saturday evening, and more results are the topic of my talk at the liveARCH conference in Hungary in October. A good reason to set to work on all the cops of yarn and questionnaires!

As this blog's regular readers will know (and even the semi-regular readers, as much as I've blogged about it), this week is Textilforum week at Eindhoven, and I will be busy with running the spinning experiment and chatting real-life with lots of other historical textile enthusiasts.

For you, this means you can come to Eindhoven and have a chat with me as well - or wait for regular blogging to resume probably Tuesday week after next.

And if Eindhoven is too far away from you, but Erlangen is not, and you are looking for some hands-on experience: I will be giving an introductory course at the Begegnungszentrum Bruck on eight Monday evenings, starting on the 21st of September.