I have already posted a snippet about beeswax some time ago, when I had freshly made my blocks of wax. So here is the version for "All the gory details":

Beeswax is still used for sewing today, sold especially in quilting shops as a little helper for waxing threads for easier use. Drawing the thread over the surface of a beeswax block will lightly coat the thread surface with wax, protecting it from abrasion by the needle eye. Simultaneously, any surplus twist from the plying and winding process is removed from the thread, much reducing its tendency to develop kinks and tangles. Especially linen threads profit a lot from waxing.

Use of beeswax in textile work is documented for medieval times through different written accounts like inventory or acquisition lists. Rests of organic matter identified as wax were also found on pinked edges of cloth, sealing the cuts in their crisp, neat appearance. There are no finds of wax pieces in context with sewing - but like most organic matter, beeswax will quickly decay in the ground.
Beeswax was also used to protect the edges of a cutout embroidery on linen before sewing it into place, or to waterproof linen. That, of course, will use more beeswax than just waxing the threads.

The wax offered here is produced from modern bees (of course), of very high quality and very clean - wax of similar quality is often used in cosmetic production. The wax comes in blocks that were made using modern equipment.

I'm back home again, up and running - and blogging (even if it's slightly later than usual due to a much-needed battle against sleep deficiencies). So what have I been up to in these last two weeks?

First, there was Tannenberg. The traditional season's end market and, like Freienfels, usually resembling something like a fair to see different craftspeople and sellers of medieval tools and paraphernalia. This year, however, Tannenberg was rather subdued in atmosphere and with much less participants than the years before. We all wondered why - maybe all the fear-mongering about bad times and recession, combined with real-life struggling of craftspeople and participants, have finally had their impact on the modern middle ages as well. Still, we had a very nice time in Tannenberg, with quite good weather - only one day of rain and drizzle, and not much muddyness at all - and met and chatted with many of our friends and colleagues.

After return on Monday, it was unpacking, drying, sorting out of things and then, for me, preparing for Hungary straight away. Since I had to finish the presentation too, Tuesday was quite short for that - but everything got packed up in time, clothes stuffed into a bag, the trusty laptop bundled up, and off I went to a wonderful and truly memorable conference in Százhalombatta, a town some thirty km from Budapest. The conference was both the EXARC meeting and the last meeting of liveARCH, a project connecting eight archaeological open air museums from eight different countries. It was wonderfully organised by the Matrica Museum and archaeological park of Százhalombatta, including lodgings and transfer from and to the airport (what luxury not to book anything beyond the flight). It was everything I wish for in a conference: lots of people with different experiences and points of view meeting for good, interesting and sometimes thought-provoking presentations, many academic discussions, common meals, excursions to both stretch the legs and see something else for a while (including something typical for the country and/or region), enough coffee breaks with sweets (yes, the local sweets are actually something I enjoy maybe too much on a conference) and more long, varied discussions. Because everything except, of course, the excursions, took place at the hotel and meals were also organised by the conference team, everyone was kept closely together, and there was no scattering to different watering holes for meals and during free time. And that is another thing that makes a successful conference, to me: Keeping everyone together so that networking, chatting, joking and discussing is made easy, because all the others are quite within reach.

And because during liveARCH it became very clear to everybody that there is one single key to good cooperation and to success with networking, perfectly summarised during one of the lectures as "communication, communication, communication", every evening the "liveARCH Social Club" was opened for having a drink and a chat or five between friends. And every evening I got to bed later and later... explaining the sleep deficiencies and, thus, the lateness of today's blog post.

Because of both Tannenberg and the liveARCH conference in Hungary coming up, I am away for the next two weeks - so no blogging during this time. Regular blogging will continue on Monday, October 12.

Today, instead of another instance of the "Gory Details" series, you get a sneak preview of things to come in the market stall. Ages ago, I have already blogged about gold thread once, still pondering whether to carry some or not. Some while later, I made the decision to give it a try. After all, the worst that can happen is that I have to do goldwork for the rest of my life to use all the thread!

Meanwhile, things have progressed, and I have received the sample in final thickness and quality. And just as I had expected, the quality is outstanding, the thread is extremely beautiful, and I am very much looking forward to the day that I can offer it in the market stall.

Of course, before placing the final order, I had to play with the gold thread, having fun brocading and embroidering dutifully test the thread for its suitability for both brocade and embroidery. And here you see the results:


The cent coin is included for scale. On top left, you see part of an unfinished embroidered (couched) motif from 12th century Villach-Judendorf, with the gold thread couched on in pairs. The different shades are made by using green and red silk thread - plant dyed by Sabine and also for sale (coming soon in the "Gory Details" series). It's amazing how much coloured shading this will give - and giving colours to the gold by stitching with the fine silk and giving textures by strategical placing of the stitches really is a delighting and delicious work.

Left of the coin, you can still see most of the steel needle I worked with (and still threaded in with green). And right of the coin is a tablet-woven band, eleven tablets threaded with Gütermann silk in a dark red shade and brocaded with the gold thread, again taken double. While the picture does more or less catch the look of the embroidery, the brocade on the band gave me a hard time photographing it, and the picture doesn't do it justice. It shines and glitters in real life and looks really, really expensive. (Well, it is.)

You can click on the picture to see it much larger, but please don't look too closely at the quality of the weaving and stitching - these are the first bits I made, it was just playing around with it to get a first impression, and I have not really worked with gold thread before. But the thread is wonderful to work with, smooth and flexible and very, very golden. And I just could not keep all this shininess to myself any longer!

Good-quality linen thread makes sewing a much more pleasant experience, but linen often features slubs in the single threads. These slubs are not only a nuisance when working, they also mean a weak spot in the thread.

I have searched for nice, smooth, sturdy linen thread for quite some time, and I am happy to have found one finally with no or next to no slubs and imperfections in the thread. Each little spool holds 20 m of thread. If you sew much more with linen thread, larger quantities are possible - just contact me.The thread is a little thinner than the "Sternzwirn" often used by Germans and is plied from three singles in Z-direction. Three singles plied make a smoother thread than two singles, and almost all linen yarns nowadays are plied from three or even more singles. Unfortunately, finds from linen are very, very rare, so we don't know if two- or three-ply linen (or another configuration still) was most common.

The thread is either fully bleached or not fully bleached. White linen is often mentioned in medieval texts, stressing the whiteness, so fully bleached linen does fit into that picture. However, bleaching the fibre to this very light shade would mean a long time in preparing and bleaching, so if you like your sewing thread a little more low-key, you can take the not-quite-white shade.

While brown paper is not an authentic medieval packaging, I have chosen it because it is easy to handle, quite eco-friendly and cheap. The brown paper will at least not be blatantly modern-looking in a historical sewing kit; and if necessary, rewinding 20 m of thread onto a wooden spool will not take very long.

Linen thread is very strong (unless buried in soil, where the slightly acidic milieu dissolves vegetable fibres), but can be harmed by too much rubbing from the needle eye in one spot. So when using linen thread, make sure the eye of your needle has no sharp ridges, and move the needle further along the thread at regular intervals while sewing. Lightly waxing the linen thread with beeswax will significantly protect the linen yarn and also inhibit tangling of longer threads, so while I recommend waxing most sewing threads, it really is a "must do" with linen.

Pins and needles are precious - especially if you are buying hand-made pins and needles. So you should have a place for safe keeping of these fine, pricey helpers, and best if that is also convenient to use.


This pincushion-in-the-box was designed for safe keeping and carrying around of pins, combining a box for protection with the convenience and ease-of-use of a pincushion. The cushion itself is sewn from linen, tightly filled with wood shavings to give a pleasant, firm and long-lived cushion, and covered with wool cloth. It sits in the lid of a round wooden box, pleasantly weighted by a hefty sheet of copper between cushion and lid that will not only keep it from sliding around on your table too easily but also prevent the pins from accidentally piercing through the thin layer of wood. The rest of the box goes on as a lid, keeping the pins from dust, dirt, childrens' fingers or other harmful things. For use, simply take off the cover and place the cushion on your table or on the cover turned upside down.


This pincushion is a joy to have for everybody who likes to use pincushions and does textile work in more places than the home sewing spot. Packing a pincushion can't be easier - put on the cover and throw in with the rest of tools and supplies.

Cushion is hand-made and hand-sewn. Woolen cover cloth in several colours, your own material can be used on request. Materials used were available in the middle ages, except the glue fixing the cushion into the box lid; authentic glue can be used on request. The box is a modern machine-made one, glued from rather thin wood slivers, so it is not strictly authentic (for a better authentic look, hide the cover once it's taken off and only display the cushion). Each one is a little different, so if you want something especially high (filling all the box) or low (allowing to keep an occasional needle in the closed box), just contact me.

How medieval is a pin-cushion itself? That is a hard question. On the few illustrations that I have found showing sewing people or tailors, I could not find any pin-cushions. This can be because there were none in the Middle Ages or they were seen as so commonplace or so unimportant that they were not shown. Personally, I would suspect that making something pin-cushion-like for keeping pins handy yet safe should be a quite old concept. And I have never been asked that question while using the pin-cushion, it's just such an ordinary tool for the sewing table.

So the voices that spoke up on my post about the market stall and how much info should be included on each item more or less all spoke for "all the gory details", even if just speaking for themselves. But it might be a nice thing also for the real-life market customers to be able to check back on the ol' interwebz what they bought and what the story behind really is.

This means I'll set up the market stall page with a small picture of each item and a short description and price, and give a link to "the story behind" or some similar phrase, where all the details are listed about the item.

And to get this done in decent time, I will run a series called "All the Gory Details" on this blog from now for the next few days, each day tackling a new item from the market stall - because blog time is already a little chunk of time reserved for writing each day, and not trying to get it all done at once feels very relaxing. The new series will start on Monday, if nothing untoward happens... and I hope that you will enjoy to hear the background stories of the items on my market stall table.

I've half finished one of the most dreaded chores in my freelancer's business life: Bookkeeping. And I don't even know why I dread it that much (though by far not as much as the dentist!). It's not so bad once I sit down to do it, and since I have a very very simple system, it's not even complicated.

Oh, what system? Well... pile all un-booked things, including unbooked bank statements in a spot on the desk. When booking, go through pile paper by paper, booking each item into freeware software (easy-to-use programme, but in German only, and I don't want to be without that little helper again). Then put all items into a folder. Keeping track is very easy then: If it's in the folder, it's been booked. If not, then not.

So while keeping up with books only takes a few minutes for a whole month, out of some unknown reason, I have the tendency to wait until bad conscience cannot be ignored any longer. And while I'm not sure that my general style of working would benefit from a change, I am very sure that just booking things once a month, regularly, would be quite sensible. Now I only need a way to remind myself to book things regularly... preferably in a nice, fun way.