If you're looking for something to do on the 22nd of February, and you happen to be a weaver, embroiderer, or someone otherwise skilled in textile techniques, and have ideas about working with gold... you might want to apply for a spot in the Citizen Science project taking place in Vienna that day.

Here's more info, in German and English:

Today was one of those days that seem to have been broken from the start - nothing really worked, and nothing really seemed to progress, and it was grey outside, and there you go.

So you're getting just a cat pic today. Because everything is better with a cat pic.

I have finally gotten around to taking photographs of the newly (well, sort-of-newly by now) arrived spindle sticks. I've restocked all kinds, and since they are handmade, they are always a little different in each batch.

This time, however, the pearwood sticks are really different - as in very, very colourful. Apparently pearwood has a quite large spectrum of possible appearances: while it's usually a kind of warm, soft reddish tone, it can range from very light (looking almost like cherry wood) to very dark (looking almost like walnut tree wood). And this time, well, my wood wizard seems to have gotten their hands on an especially colourful batch of wood.



So many different colours!  (You can get the sticks in my shop.)

It's Friday - but it's not only Friday, it is also time for the winter break here. I'll be taking time off for the holidays and then a few more days in the next year to work on the Bronze Age fabric reconstruction - so I will be back on the blog on January 17.



Until then, I hope you'll have a wonderful time - thank you for stopping by here, reading and commenting. I hope you'll have good holidays with loved ones and activities you enjoy, and a good start into a fine and healthy year 2022.

See you on the other side!

Because things are so busy here right now (spinning, posting things, and getting the conference paper finished), you're just getting a cat pic today:



There's been a lot of spinning, and though it feels like it's not taking much attention while I'm at it, I feel just like the cat looks afterwards!

I've been busy today spinning, and bringing stuff to the post, and spinning some more, and then there was some spinning. The day was finished off with some desk work - most importantly some preparation for the TAG conference that starts on Friday.

There also was some baking yesterday evening. We're slowly approaching completion of the "these cookies are what we really want to have this year" stage - including, new in this year's line-up, Spekulatius (which is a simple brownish cookie spiced with cinnamon, cloves, and cardamom).

The worst thing about baking cookies for Xmas? They come out of the oven smelling oh, so nice... but when you try one of the freshly baked ones, they are still rather bland and not as nice as they smell. (Some very few exceptions to this rule exist, but they are really very few.) They need some time to rest in a nice little tin in a nice cool place - some will be fine after just two or three days, but most of them will want a week or so of rest, and the vanilla crescents that we make actually get really good only after three weeks or so. (Which is why they get baked as the first thing every year.) I won't complain too much, though, because that means the baking is better done spaced out and in advance, and you can even stagger the baking in a sequence that will have the ones needing to ripen the longest first.

So jury's still out on how this year's batch of cinnamon stars will have turned out, and if the new Spekulatius recipe will hold up to scrutiny. We'll know in a few days...

Cooking and baking is the stuff of the season - especially baking, at least here in Germany, where Christmas Cookies are still the Thing. I remember my gran on my dad's side bake a lot of different cookies each year, and those were a highlight in my childhood days - so much so that I feel the need to carry on that tradition, every year. (My other gran, though she had a lot of recipes that she made, is very much associated in my brain with a special kind of potato salad, by the way.)

Grandmothers are sort of pre-destined to be the source of recipes traded on in a family. In case you have not enough granny recipes from your own family, or from the grandmas of friends, here's a very interesting site for you: The Grandmas Project. This is a collection of films made by the grandchildren of their grandmother sharing (and making) a recipe. I really like this idea - and they are open to contributions, too!

(The potato salad, though, will not go in there. Although my gran is still alive and recently celebrated her 100th birthday, she has stopped cooking a while ago - her eyesight is almost gone...)