I'm fitting a bit of spinning in every day now - and there's noticeable progress. Or, more precisely: The first three bobbins have been filled, and been reeled off, and now I have the first three skeins of yarn, destined to be the weft yarn for our fabric reconstruction. 

They might not look like much, but it's almost 1.5 km of yarn, with a rather high twist (as you can see from the skeins crunching up). A bit more to go for the weft, and then I will go on to spin the warp yarn, from a different kind of wool and with even higher twist. The warp in the original is actually really, really hard-spun, and it will be interesting to reproduce this. I just hope it will behave on the loom and not be too hard and awkward to weave with!

Maps are nice, and very helpful, and an interesting thing. They are also quite misleading when it comes to the size of countries - because with the "normal" map projection, the one we're all most used to because it's the most common, the sizes change in regard to the distance to the equator.

So in case you've ever wondered how large Greenland or Finland really are compared to Italy... here you can find out: thetruesize.com allows you to drag and drop individual countries on top of other ones. Makes for some really interesting shrinkage if you drag Greenland into Africa!

A while ago, some reels turned up in my Instagram feed, and thus I stumbled over Elle Cordova. She's doing stuff about a variety of things, and one of them is... fonts. I hope you enjoy this one as much as I did: 

It's Friday! The weekend is coming up, and that's a very nice thing.  Also a nice thing? The many flowers blooming outside. Like those little ones:

It's really nice to have these heralds of spring blooming!  

This June, there will be a German conservator conference, called "Neu verflechten", which will even be hybrid - so if you're interested, here is some more info:

27. bis 29. Juni 2024

Neu verflechten!

Textile Netzwerke und Perspektiven im musealen und archäologischen Kontext

Die Fachgruppe Textil und die Studienrichtung Textilien und Archäologische Fasern des Instituts für Restaurierungs- und Konservierungswissenschaft (CICS) der TH Köln laden zu einer gemeinsamen Fachtagung unter dem Titel "Neu verflechten"! Textile Netzwerke und Perspektiven im musealen und archäologischen Kontext" vom 27. bis 29. Juni 2024 an der TH Köln ein.

Die Tagung setzt sich mit den aktuellen Herausforderungen im Umgang mit musealen und archäologischen Textilien auseinander und soll dazu dienen, neue kollegiale Netzwerke zu bilden – zu verflechten. Das Tagungsthema ist bewusst offen gestaltet, um allen aktuellen Themen der Textilrestaurierung Raum zu geben.

Viele der Präsentationen und Poster sind interdisziplinär. Themenschwerpunkte sind vor allem die Textilrestaurierung in der Archäologie, aber auch in der modernen Textilkunst, sowie die Anwendung von Methoden und Materialien anderer Fachgebiete. Begleitend zur Tagung wird eine Ausstellung mit Vernissage (Textiles & Beyond. Positionen zeitgenössischer textilverarbeitender KünstlerInnen. Ausstellung am CICS, Raum 11, 17. bis 29. Juni 2024) angeboten. Bei einem gemeinsamen Abend mit Aperitivo haben wir die Möglichkeit für den Austausch und ein gemütliches Zusammensitzen. Am Ende der drei Veranstaltungstage bieten wir außerdem Führungen durch die Fachbereiche des CICS an.

Wir bieten unsere Tagung in diesem Jahr erstmals hybrid an, sodass auch eine kostengünstigere Online-Teilnahme möglich ist.

Mehr Informationen zur Tagung (Programm und Link zur Anmeldemöglichkeit) hier auf der VDR-Seite.

I will also be there, presenting our membrane thread project - and I'm already looking forward to this a lot! 

Not paper as in paper used to make membrane threads, but a paper about membrane threads - Caroline Solazzo, Cristina Scibè and a couple more researchers have published a paper about their work on membrane gilt threads. It can be found in "Nature", and to my great delight, it's open access.

You can read "Palaeoprotomics and microanalysis reveal techniques of production of animal-based metal threads in medieval textiles." here.

In this case, "it" is the spinning - with the first bobbin all done and completely filled: 

The second bobbin is not full yet, but as soon as it is, I will wind skeins from both of them, measure the amount done, weigh them, and set the twist. And then the rest will be spun.

I'm starting with the weft in this case, and I'm trying to make it a little bit thicker than in the test run; same will happen with the warp. The weft in the originals is rather unevenly thick and thin, so I'm sort of trying to not pay too much attention to thickness while staying in the appropriate range.

It's funny how trying to match a non-perfect original thread is about as hard (though maybe in a different way) than trying to match a really well-done, almost perfect original thread!

The Section Française de la Direction des Antiquités du Soudan (SFDAS) is starting a cycle of hybrid lectures and conferences. The first event is organised on Thursday 21st of March, at 14.00 (Cairo time) / 13.00 (CET), and it is about textiles:

The sensory archaeology of garments. New approaches to the body in ancient Sudan and Nubia
Speaker is Elsa Yvanez, who is an associate professor at the Centre for Textile Research at the Uni of Copenhagen. 
Date of the presentation is March 21, 14:00 (Cairo time) / 13:00 (CET).

You can either go there in person to the IFAO, Mounira Palace or join online on the IFAO YouTube channel:  https://www.youtube.com/@institutfrancaisdarcheolog5642/featured 

Yesterday was Pi Day - and today, my computer obligingly tells me (even though I did not ask) it's World Sleep Day. There's a something-day every single day these days, it seems!

At least this means that should you feel sleepy, you can blame the day. If you're feeling just the same as always... well, I guess our little cat does, too, and she sleeps a lot anyways.  

In, as you'd guess as she's a cat, varying positions and degrees of "aaw"-ness. Quite often it looks so comfy one gets the spontaneous wish to lie down beside her and take a nap as well.

In spite of today being World Sleep Day and the cat napping here and there since the morning (on a chair, in a basket, in her cat bed, and on my arm on the desk), I have not joined her for sleepies but instead did some writing and editing tasks and some spinning. And now for even more work... but no getting up for the moment even though I'd have some tasks that require hopping around... because the current sleeping spot is draped half over my arm again.

It's Pi Day, 3.14, and to my great delight, I've actually realised it before posting here - so you're getting a Pie post today. 

I am quite fond of pies, and sometimes think I should make them way more often, but... well... they do require either some work, or some suitable leftovers. Work as in "making the pie and the filling to go with it", or leftovers that can go into the pie shell with little or no modification, so there's only the dough, and then the baking, to do.

For weekday lunch (which is the thing I'm cooking stuff for), making both the dough and the filling is usually more time than I can fit into the schedule... which leaves leftovers to put into the pie. Sadly, that does not happen too often anymore either. The nicest leftovers (I think) that you can stick into a pie shell is some meat-based dish. Add in, maybe, some leftover potatoes and vegetables, the remainder of the sauce or make some if necessary, and off you go. However, we've reduced the amount of meat-based dishes that we eat over the course of the last years... and there's my problem with having leftovers. 

So, hm, maybe we should have the sweet version more often then, to make up for it - but there's so many nice cakes to bake...

Do you have favourite pie recipes? Sweet or savoury?