I have a hard time believing how time flies by - it seems just like yesterday that we left for our paddling holiday, and now it's weeks later and the Forum is almost upon us.

Time to take care of the last bits and pieces, which include the last bits of fine-tuning for the experiment that we have planned for this year. It's about Late Antique resist-dyed textiles... and among the things left to do is making a template for the application of the resist pastes we are planning to use. The materials, though, have not all arrived yet, a package seems to have gone astray. Which again proves Rule #1 for Experimental Archaeology: Things always take longer than you expect.*

That, and going through the whole thing together with Sabine who will take care of the actual dyeing process. We will dye using indigo - I'm really looking forward to that, I always love when fabric suddenly becomes blue!


* Rule #2, by the way, is Something that you need is always missing. Maybe I should do a whole post about the Rules...

One of the things I love about archaeology, and especially experimental archaeology, is how it keeps you on your toes and gets you to suddenly learn stuff about things you never tended to think about before.

As in - did you know that beeswax actually starts to melt at around 40°C, not the 60+ that are usually stated as its melting point? And that the temperature depends not only on the species of the bees and maybe their location, but also on who made the wax and how old it is? I learned about that yesterday. I was not as successful in finding out the melting point of natural pinus pinea resin, though (if you should have a helpful hint, I'd love to have it).

Today, I am trying to find out about the temperatures used in traditional batik techniques. Looks like they dye above the onset of melting of beeswax... and tomorrow, if everything goes according to plan, I will finish the thinking and planning and write down a plan to follow for the actual testing. There's a few sticky points still to solve - how to get the mixture out of the cloth again, how to make sure that everything is dyed at the same temperature but with no bad side effects from stuff touching, how to ensure an uniform temperature for the mixture application, and some more pesky details like that.

And now... on to more hunting of .pdfs, and finding out about melting points and possible sources and temperatures and processes. 

(For those of you who have not guessed it yet: It's all about the resist dye technique test runs at the Textile Forum.)

As you might know, the Textile Forum is a very experiment-friendly place. Last year, we had a little dyeing experiment looking at the influences of different metal kettles (simulated by metal plates in neutral pots) on dyeing, inspired by the question why the Romans in Pompeii had lead dye vats. (You can see pictures of the experiment, the dyed samples, and a poster of the preliminary results on the Forum's archive page, here.)

The experiment is now getting an add-on - a second test run, only with birch leaves as dye (due to time restrictions), but with the metal additions split between the mordanting only and the dyeing only. If all goes according to plan, it will be possible to see if there is more influence from the metal in the mordanting process or the dyeing process.

I have been preparing for this quite a bit already - the alum is ordered, the 80 m skeins are wound and tied off so they won't go knotty, and today will see my finishing off the outline and experiment plan. It takes a while to go through all this and type out, bit by bit and step for step, what is to do. But yay for a detailed plan like that - it's so helpful to have a sheet with the single steps all written out, and tables to put the measured values. Also helps a lot in making sure you don't forget to take a measurement, or a photograph.

And week after next will see the actual run of the experiment. I'm really looking forward to this!

The event is based on an international, interdisciplinary and intercultural format meant to spark a lively and informative dialogue among speakers and participants from a variety of backgrounds, professions and points of view. The three day event will not only feature an impressive selection of high profile presenters, but also all inclusive behind-the-scenes visits and excursions to exclusive places and sites pertinent to the interests of all who attend.

They are looking for papers from all kinds of backgrounds,  and the CfP is open until August 22 2013. Technically, there is a website, but there is no info whatsoever there apart from three rather unrelated links; so if you are interested, it's probably best to contact info(at)costume-textile.com directly.

The international digital heritage congress will take place from October 28 to November 1, 2013, in Marseille, France. More info, as usual and expected, on their website.

And finally, don't forget about the European Textile Forum - we still have some very few spaces left!

Not so very long ago (as in just a few hours), I did have a different idea about what to blog on than semi-random work-related stuff, but it has miraculously evaporated from my brain. Which is, at the moment, a tiny little bit addled by having heard construction-type noise for all of this week, with the extra serving (as in: in close proximity to me) yesterday afternoon and today. (We're getting new windows set in, which is lovely and very nice, but obviously connected to some work being done.)

In work-related news, I will be hunting for evidence of medieval furniture in England. Also: preparing for two short on-event workshops that will take place when I am in Herzberg, and I'm very much looking forward to this. Also on my list of things (exciting and nice things) to do: get an overview about our paper and workshop/practical session offers for the Textile Forum and update the website. I have been drooling over some pictures already this morning, and I can tell you - I'm really, really psyched about this.

Finally, and also Forum-related: You can actually pre-order our first volume, "Ancient Textiles - Modern Science", aka the European Textile Forum Proceedings. It's a collection volume of the last years, and not every paper given is in there, but it's a very nice variety and a good spread over times, materials and techniques. We hope that it will be successful enough to lead the way to a second volume in the future.

Somehow, the last few days, my schedule has been all over the place, and I'm not even sure why. I know that I slept way longer than usual today, and I all blame it on my furry biological alarm clock (aka the cat) - instead of insisting to get her morning treats, food, and being let outside, this morning she cuddled up to me for another almost two hours of sleep. No wonder this morning is so short, and this blog so late...

But on to things that might actually interest you. The first registrations for the Forum are in, and it looks like we'll have an in-detail look at some of the decorations on the Lengberg finds as well.Yay for decorated medieval bras!

Speaking of underwear, you are probably familiar with the Dove advertisements and their "real beauty" campaign? Here's an article about "the Problem with Dove". TL;DR: Dove is a part of Unilever, a company that is not about accepting different forms of beauty, and seen together with other stuff Unilever promotes, the campaign seems quite... weird.

After a long chain of delays, finally everything is figured out and the registration for the Textile Forum is now open. My testing of the submission/registration form works, so I hope it will also work for everybody else (in my next life, I will learn how to do proper php and pearl programming!)

The Forum will take place September 2 to September 8 in Mayen, Germany, with the focus topic "Decorative Elements in Textiles". We have changed our concept slightly and moved the paper session to the morning hours, when everyone will be more awake - and after each paper session, we plan to have an afternoon workshop, demonstration, or other practically oriented afternoon session about the same item or topic.

Sabine and I are very excited about this, and we hope it will be a roaring success. If you would like to take part in the Forum, you can register here - we'd be very happy to see you in September!