There's actually new stuff in the shop - I've finally managed to take pictures and get the new kids in. It's fibres for spinning this time - first of all, two nice, naturally coloured types of wool, from the Bergschaf breed. The lighter variation is a nice, warm brown:

The second colour is a very, very dark brown - so dark that it can quite legitimately called black. I like both variations, but the black is my current favourite. 

And the third new fibre in the shop? It's.... cotton!  While that wasn't the most common fibre in the Middle Ages in Germany and the surrounding area, it was in use - for padding at first, but later also as the weft thread in fustian, for instance.

Because of a series of chance, I learned how to spin on a hand-spindle using cotton... which may have played a role in my persisting penchant for spinning thin yarns with high twist on heavy spindles... because cotton needs quite a bit of twist to make a stable thread, and I had limited amounts of fibre, and if you're a spinner, you can probably guess what happened.

Because after finding out about the pesticide use and water use of conventionally grown cotton, I've switched over to organic cotton or none at all, so this is (of course) also organic cotton. 

You can get all three from my shop, finding them among the spinning fibres, of course. 

It's been a good while now since I've run out of the brass pins in the shop, but somehow there was this and that and things didn't line up, and I never got around to sitting down and making new ones. 

Today, though, I really felt like doing something practical again for a bit, after all the website and writing things, and I got out the metal-working supplies and started a bit of pin-making.

It begins with preparing the heads, which are made from wrapped wire, then cut into bits: 

Then shanks are cut and hammered into the little head coils, and then I do some more hammering to make sure the heads are decently stuck on the shanks, and then the annoying bit starts: sharpening the tips.

The photo shows half-finished tips on some pins. I'm still not completely happy with the workflow in that part of the process, but at least I'm getting pins already. Some more grinding, and some more testing of possible methods to come... and soon, pins to come back to the shop. Yay!

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!