After I missed Pi Day this year, I'm happy to report that the Internet reminded me in time to, in turn, tell you that today is International Hug A Medievalist Day. Yes, it's a thing. It's been a thing since 2011, when somebody invented it.

If you are curious now, you can read an ultra-short interview with the inventor, Sarah Laseke, over here. And if you're unsure about hugging protocol, here's a tongue-in-cheek advisory table on whether to hug away or rather not, and how.

Enjoy this day, whether you getting an extra hug or not!

If you are into Living History or the Middle Ages and you're looking for an event to go to in August, here's one that might be interesting to you: Medieval World Convention. It will take place in a lovely spot in Germany (which promises to be quite warm at that time of year) from August 10 to August 20.

One of my market-trading colleagues is in the team planning this, and they want to establish the convention as a place to meet other people from all over the world, and take part in all kinds of different lectures, presentations, and workshops. All this is bookable via an app - which is a nice mixture of the modern stuff to help learn things about the past... and quite geeky, too.

If you are interested, go ahead and register - the event will only take place if enough people register for a start. (The fee for participation will only be payable if that is the case, you lose no money if it doesn't work out.) Or if you know somebody who might be interested, do spread the word! Sadly, I won't be able to take part, as I'm already somewhere else during that time - but if the Convent works out, there will be a second one in the future...

Here's a few links for you:

The new issue of Knitty is up, and among the things featured is a pair of socks with a really fancy heel. Hm. Maybe I have space for one more pair of socks in my drawer?

Going bouldering is still totally delightful for me, and recently I stumbled across a bouldering comic called Betamonkeys. It's really funny if you climb (and probably not so much if you don't).

The current Humble Book Bundle, where you pay what you want and part of it goes to charity, is featuring Women of SFF - among the books, some by Octavia Butler, who is a Grande Dame of the genre. It will be up for another week, so if you have an e-book itch to scratch...

And finally, if you enjoy reading news about archaeology, paleontology and related subjects from all around the world, you might want to check out the Archaeology News Network blog, which is serving up all this and more.

There's been some more weaving yesterday, and some more preparing for an upcoming course I'll be giving at the Uni of Paderborn. I'm all excited about it - it will be a three-day seminar regarding old and forgotten textile techniques and reconstruction, ranging from a look at spinning to the reconstruction of historical tailoring techniques.

As usual, though, it means that I need to prepare a slew of slides in Powerpoint - which is a time-consuming task even if you have a lot of practice at it (which I do). Part of this is because I'll be integrating some of my new-found knowledge about the changes in twist from spinning to woven cloth, and that means sitting down and measuring out things (which I'd need to do anyways for my own documentation plus the upcoming other talk about spinning at NESAT, but the course in early April means I have to do it right now).

Also as usual, going into a new(ish) direction of research means the opportunity to get sidetracked... in the current case, that is me looking for a good software for measuring out and marking down angles in spun threads. I know that the Dinolite microscope software can do that, but I've tried it and it refuses to open my pictures, so no joy for me there. There's a measurement function in my (ancient) CorelDraw, but it needs a lot of prodding and tweaking to look nice, and even worse, it doesn't always leave the measures where I made them. ImageJ lets me do the measurements and lists the results in a table, but I haven't made the drawn angles stick on the image yet. So I'm still looking - and hopefully I'll find something suitable soon!

Things I learned this week, in no particular order:

I can only listen to so much audio fiction before I want something else, input-wise.
Which means I went out to discover some non-fiction podcasts, and that was quite successful. So here are three podcasts that I thoroughly enjoyed: You are not so smart, which is about the weird things your brain does so you can better delude yourself; Training Beta, which is interviews with climbers about climbing and training (I figured if my ass is stuck on the couch for hours on end, I might as well think about getting it up a wall); and Futility Closet, which is about forgotten stories from history (and has the coolest logo - who could resist a penguin with a monocle and a tophat?).

If I have interesting stuff to listen to, I can spin for a longer time (duh, who'd have thought it, right?) and I can manage up to a kilometer in a day. That, however, will eat up all the workday, and I'll be totally tired in the evening - it's not a really sustainable pace if there is anything else to happen as well, such as keeping on top of emails and other stuff, or running the rest of my business.

Also spinning-related - having an actual piece of goal yarn works better for me than checking against a chart, plus, as an added benefit, these reference snippets on a card can be filed later on for reference in case of similar projects in the future (where I'll be a lot, no make that a huge lot, smarter about calculating).

Third Time's the Charm seems to actually work, and - as I sort of said yesterday - tenacity and stick-to-it-iveness through the suckitude of getting your face kicked by archaeotechnic mishaps is key. At least the current status of the last batch of yarn is "suitable, and work is progressing well". Whew. Might be we'll actually make that deadline.

In all that stress with the spinning and exploding project and so on, I realised that my dieting phase has made me completely quit the habit of stress-induced eating, which is really, really nice. On a half-related note, doing a pullup or chinup is much easier on an actual bar that is easy to grip, not swaying because it is hanging on ropes like a swing, not ice-cold and not rotating than trying it on things that are not really bars, or swinging, or rotating, or ice-cold, or whatever. (Which means I did manage to do my very first pullup - something I've wanted to be able to do for years. Decades, even. Yay!)

Sometimes, checking Twitter makes me discover really interesting things... like the fact that sheep play a part in keeping me healthy. Just like my dad, and my mum, and even the most patient husband of them all... who, like me, take regular Vitamin D3 supplements. (Coincidentally, today is the day when I have my weekly dose. How fitting.)

And due to that random tweet today, I learned that Vitamin D in the usual prescription preparations is derived... from lanolin. Which, as you probably know, is the waxy stuff that makes sheep's wool nice and greasy and water repellent. The process is rather complex, and you can read about it on Wikipedia or in this less technical blog article.

As an aside, while we're on that topic - if you are like most people living in Middle or Western Europe and don't have an outdoor job, or even if you have an outdoor job, you might want to ask your doctor to check your Vitamin D levels, or if you prefer not having your doc do it, there are even prick-your-own-finger-to-bleed-into-this-small-vial kits that you can use to get the levels checked. Most of us living in Middle/Western Europe have too low Vit D levels, and that stuff is essential for a metric fuckton of important body functions. Mine were critically low when I had them tested, and my dad's were almost lethally low.

Here is again a link roundup for your delectation!

While we are certainly living in interesting times, with the US pulling the Trump Card to top the daftness that is Brexit, there are also things that make me feel hopeful about the future of humanity: Jews share their synagogue building with moslems after their mosque burned down.

Christina Pappas writes about following in the footsteps of a spinner from 2000 years ago by replicating two textile finds. First up is a slipper.

More archaeology: UCD School of Archaeology is currently accepting applications for its MSc in Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture for 2017/18, at University College Dublin, Ireland, home of the Centre for Experimental Archaeology and Material Culture *CEAMC) and host of the 9th Experimental Archaeology Conference (EAC9) in 2015. All enquiries to Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein. Director of CEAMC and MSc Programme co-ordinator.

Hiltibold has links to two videos, one about hide glues (in German) and one about reconstructing a Roman hairstyle (in English).

And that's it for today. Now I'll go forth and have a fancy Krapfen*, because it's the season for them here in Germany!

 
*What the English version of the Wikipedia article does not tell you is that the typical filling in Franconia is rose hip jam... though the article about Hiffenmark in English does. Comparing Wikipedia articles in different languages to each other? Fun!