After a phase of almost no sewing work, things have advanced during the last two or three weeks.
I have finally finished a kruseler that is now waiting to be tried out with the appropriate hairdo underneath, and a woolen sideless surcote is finished apart from the hem. The upper area of the surcote is lined with rabbit fur for extra warmth, and I am looking forward to testing this garment, though proper wearing will have to wait some months.

While working with fur, I have also decided to sew myself fur mittens. I get very cold fingers very fast, and I have rabbit furs and wool, so why not make fur-lined woolen mittens to keep my hands warm? I wanted to make non-modern ones (of course) so I can also use them on medieval events during winter time (or in severely cold spots). For medieval handwear, both gloves and mittens are known, and in the 14th and 15th century, even "lobster mittens" (two compartments for two fingers each, and the thumb) can be found on pictures. I opted for the earlier (and warmer) classic mitten type, though.

There are not many finds of fur garments, and cut and shape are usually impossible to tell from pictures. But the bookshelf, again, comes to the rescue with Rainer Atzbach's wonderful thesis about the finds from Kempten in Southern Germany. The Mühlbach-Ensemble in Kempten is a complex of a few buildings that sported hollow spaces between floor layers and between rooms. Those were filled with remnants of daily life - fragments of clothes, wood pieces, dust, straw, coins, paper scraps, and so on. Because there was no soil environment, and because it was all kept dry all the time, vegetable fibres and furs have kept well.

Fur usually degenerates in the soil, due to the tanning process (with alum) that does not result in leather as resilient as oak-tanned (or similarly tanned) leather. Thus, tannin-tanned leather might still be found in digs with good conditions, while furs or alum-tanned leathers will have disappeared. And this is why the Kempten finds are so important: It is the largest known find of furs from medieval times. If you can read German, Rainer's book "Leder und Pelz am Ende des Mittelalters und zu Beginn der Neuzeit: Die Funde aus den Gebäudehohlräumen des Mühlberg-Ensembles in Kempten (Allgäu)" is definitely worth a look. It is not only a documentation of the finds from Mühlberg, but he also gives very well-researched, concise histories of leather and fur garments. If you need to know something about shoes and fur garments, the book is a good start to delve deeper into the topic.

By the way, the first mitten fur lining is finished already, and the second one is coming along nicely. I hope to finish both mittens, including the woolen layer, on Friday.

First things first, and a happy, healthy and successful year 2009 to all you readers out there!

I'm back home since yesterday in the afternoon, but today and tomorrow are still for rest and relaxation, before work starts again. I started the new year with a bout of 'flu or something like it, and so I'll be going easy tomorrow.

2008 for me was full of exciting things, and the most sparklingly important happenings for me were finishing my thesis (I handed it in at the end of March) and successfully defending it in July. The first half of the year thus was filled with alternately stressing (much) and trying to de-stress; the latter with one short trip to Berlin (with a concert given by the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain) and one long trip to Copenhagen. The Denmark trip was not overly much destressing, though, since I also went to NESAT, but a wonderful experience. I went hunting for a publisher for my thesis, which was exhilarating, and I learned a lot about the publishing process while reading up about the business and putting the materials together. I also thought a lot about the future, money, insurances and how I want to make the money I need, and I will find out in 2009 whether freelancing only is possible for me. Our main holiday trip was spent canoeing on the Mecklenburger Seenplatte, and it was wonderful and very quiet, since we went rather late in the year. I had a stressful though fun order for a new exhibition that will come up as soon as the building in Hartenstein is finished, and that saw me busy through most of September and all of October. Not that I've not been busy since - there is next year's summer season to prepare, since I have a few medieval events on my calendar already; I have a conference to attend in March and a talk to give in January; and a bunch of other things to prepare and write besides.

Alltogether, 2008 has been a good and very successful year for me, and I hope that 2009 will turn out as well - for me and for you, too.

Somehow, it seems as if things always come in batches, never one at a time. A while ago, I had a batch of things all progressing smoothly, working out and falling into place with no effort whatsoever. The last few days, the opposite is happening: Obstacles and complications seem to pop up everywhere.

I hope that at least the most important issues can get resolved before next week - I fully intend to have the holidays off. It's a much needed break from everyday computer work, and I'm looking forward to that. All the problems that have not been solved by the 23rd will just have to wait a few days!

Until then, however, some time is left to tackle them. And unlike their way of appearing in my life, I will not tackle the whole batch at once, but work at them one at a time...