I've been wondering in the back of my brain for most of the night, since looking at the Alpirsbach pattern yesterday: How would it have been constructed?

You see, the pattern, as published in Fingerlin, I., 2001. Textil- und Lederfunde, in: Landesdenkmalamt Baden-Württemberg (Ed.), Alpirsbach. Zur Geschichte von Kloster und Stadt, Theiss, Stuttgart, pp. 715-818 on p. 737 looks like this:

The whole thing is placed at an angle onto the fabric, as indicated by the little arrows - so you can use the elasticity on the bias to make everything work better.

So far, so good. But... we're in the late 15th, early 16th century here. There's definitely no Burda-style patterns made from paper, and the thing is not lined, so you can't use the lining for construction. Which leads me to the question, as always when looking at garments from medieval times: How do you construct this? Which measurements do you take, and how do you transfer them to the fabric to cut out your thing, especially since there's bits not cut in one piece due to the fabric width?

Of course you can construct one leg first and then use that as template for the other one. But in this case, which one do you do first, the one with the bits of the front and the back strip cut extra, or the one with the solid bit of the ass part cut extra? 

Questions over questions. First step for trying to solve them is printing out the thing and marking it up with all the known bits - which pieces are definitely the same length, which bit correlates to a known body measurement, how are the warp and weft aligned in the extra bits. Which is exactly what I am going to do today, in a bout of slightly brain-bending fun!

Have I mentioned recently (or complained about, is probably more fitting) that I have really, really, really large numbers of yet-unsorted photos? No? Well, let it be said here, then. 

While I do have a lot of images that have been properly captioned, keyworded, and sorted into albums (and yes, the move to a new photo database has still not taken place, because I still haven't decided to commit to one) there are quite a few that I never tagged. So in an attempt to get at least down to reasonable numbers that are in the triple digits or so, there's been some effort of sorting lately. 

There is progress (that's the good news). There's still a lot of unsorted ones to do (that's the bad news). Occasionally, though, the sorting will turn up some memory of long(ish) ago, and that's nice.

Case in point: I just found an old photo of our little lemon tree.

That was back in 2019, and it was already blooming enthusiastically then. It's much larger now, though also looks a little, well, unkempt - but I never got around to trimming it back to a nice shape as it insists on having either flowers or fruits on the long, gangly twigs.

But, you know... I don't really care, as long as it is happily producing lemons! 

Easter has not only brought some time with family and plenty of eggs (both the coloured-shell chicken version and the chocolate version), but also some more prep for the exciting trouser project to come.

The trouser find from Alpirsbach, most probably dating to the late 15th or very early 16th century, is rather well-known for being, well, one of a kind. The fabric was a linen 2/1 twill, which is unusual by itself. The cut though very nicely corresponds to trousers shown on artwork from the same period. You can see an image of the find here (on a German page).

I'm currently working on a request of a museum to have a reconstruction of the piece, with the feet parts on. First problem was to research the fabric and figure out if there's someone who can weave it, and I'm very happy that Marie Ekstedt Bjersing is now going to take on that challenge, as the fabric is quite unique as well - not only because of the binding, but also having a thin warp and a comparatively very thick weft.

My task will be to make the fabric into a garment, and as I'm writing this, some modern, machine-made fabric is hanging outside to dry so I can do a test run in order to understand the pattern correctly before I'm cutting into the good stuff.

So. Exciting things. 

I am looking forward to a few quiet days, and hopefully to weather decent enough to putter around a bit in the garden. I am not sure where all the time is going all the time, but it really flies by, and maybe it's due to the time change (which always throws me for a bit), or to things going on in the world (where I'm always torn between catching up with the news and feeling a little sick because of all the things happening, or trying to ignore it and feeling bad because sticking one's head into the sand and living under a rock is also not the solution), but I'm not feeling overly energetic these past days.

Madame the Cat seems to be better again, and she also did not hold a personal grudge after the ordeal - quite the opposite, actually, she was extra snuggly the night after. To everybodys relief, I would say! 

Also, planning for one of the bigger museum projects is progressing, and I am delighted that I will get to cut into nice, hand-woven fabric fairly soon-ish. (Also more than a little anxious about it, but, eh, that's the textile equivalent to stage fever, I guess.) 

I will be off for the holidays, and see you back here after Easter - and I hope you will have some nice spring days to enjoy, whether you celebrate it as a holiday or not.

...and looking outside, the weather certainly seems to know it. There was sleet this morning, and now the sun is shining again.

The local squirrels engage in chasing each other, the spring flowers are in bloom, and the cherry tree is also getting ready for some action - hopefully it will not be too early, as there's not that many bees and other flying insects around yet.

In other news, I was getting distracted by personal research stuff (some of it related to family requests) and have been eating too much chocolate. (Though probably not enough. There can be too much chocolate, but never enough.) I also have new needles that have to be photographed and put into the shop. And currently there's a bit of concern because Madame the Cat seems to be constipated, which we hope will resolve itself soon, as otherwise more drastic measures will be necessary - and nobody is fond of those, not the cat nor we.

So. On to get some actual constructive work done, such as packing up things to send to customers and then hopefully not hitting a bad weather spot when bringing them to be posted... 

(This was intended to be yesterday's blog post, but I, once more, managed to not click the "publish now" thing a second time, which is required for the thing to actually, well, publish. Yes, I am slightly annoyed about that but I do try hard to be more annoyed with the blog software in question than with myself. I can, however, with hindsight let you know that the post run was indeed dry, mostly because of it taking place today instead of yesterday. Yesterday late afternoon and early evening were instead devoted to the aforementioned more drastic measures which, to everybody's and especially Madame's actually literal relief, were successful in the end. I can also share my new insight with you that administering an enema to a cat does indeed get easier with practice, but I would have gladly foregone that insight, and the practice, and I would not feel my life would be any worse if Madame had just gone on feeling well and being able to take a (stinky cat-)shit whenever it became necessary.)

I really like to read the occasional podcast story. What I'm still getting to terms with is doing not just the reading, but also the preliminary editing - that is, cutting out all the bloopers and second takes that occur. (It's not the work time, mind you. It's having to hear to my own voice and then dealing with the automatic over-analysing of anything that might not be superduperperfect. Also hearing one's own voice from a recording really takes getting used to!)

In theory, it should be possible to read a text without stumbling over one's own tongue, right? But that's the theory. So once I emerge from the wardrobe, data all safely on the computer, it's time to cut. 

The trick is to make a short, sharp, loud sound to mark the blooper, and then to have enough silence after the "bip" so you can have a nice cut to the start of your new (and hopefully successful) attempt. If that's done consistently, it's not necessary to listen to all the recording, but you can single out the bad bits and cut them away.

I also like to use the break that will be cut anyways to adjust anything that needs adjusting, or to have a sip from whatever drink has accompanied me into my fluffy corner.

I spent the morning in the closet, successfully so (at least I hope the recording will be fine, the talking was successful) and only realised after posting the blog yesterday that I had not linked to the previous podcast. So here it is - in German, again. 

In theory, we are talking about tablet weaving. At least that was the plan, but there were... distractions, which means that there's less tablet weaving and more general textile-related ramblings in there. 

We did actually fix that in today's chat, but you will have to wait a few weeks until it comes out. Meanwhile there's this two-hour monster to keep you entertained, hopefully.