I've finally caught up on Escapepod. I still have a hard time believing it - that was a lot of stories, and most of them nice to wonderful.

From last year's bunch of stories, my three favourites were:

Joolie and Irdl
Murder or a Duck
In a Manner of Speaking.

The first two are Hugo-eligible, and I think they'll end up on my list. The third I'd nominate in a heartbeat, but unfortunately it is too old. However, if you have the time and like good stories, go check it out - though let me warn you that it is a bit sad. (If you don't like audio productions, you can also read the stories on the website if you follow the link.)

I just remembered that I can give you a picture from the TV shooting - there was a small article in the local newspaper. Here you go:


For me, it's more spinning now to make the most of the rest of today, after running a few errands in the earlier afternoon. Though not with the Great Wheel.

Fun side effect of all the spinning? I'm almost caught up with listening to EscapePod...

It's finally Friday, the weekend is beckoning (and it's promising to be a nice one, with a local boardgaming event and possibly also a round of going bouldering with friends), my Windows update problems might finally be fixed, and the warp yarn for the next batch of cloth is almost finished, making the weaving of the sail cloth something bound to happen very soon.

In other news, Current Archaeology is holding a bake-off competition for archaeological baking (and even if you don't plan to participate, the thing is worth a look for the previously done stuff, which is really awesome).

More food stuff? Gillian has written about food in fiction.

If you didn't get as much nice sunny weather as we did in the last days and you are feeling melancholy about it now, Ask the Past has a cure for that. Or, well, at least suggestions. From 1303.

Brogues and Shoes has a picture series about making a leather bottle.

And finally, again on the topic of spinning and weaving, there's been a two-part column in Knitty about weaving with singles - part one and part two.

That's it for today (still too many tabs open, but it's a little better now.) Have a nice weekend, everybody!

The sun is shining, it's cold outside, and here are things from around the Internet!

There's a project on indiegogo to get a Mini-Mill from Canada all the way to Iceland, to spin the wool from local sheep into nice yarn. You can support that project starting with a 4 USD donation, and there are multiple perks to get hand-picked wool or yarns. So if you are looking for some really special fibre or yarn... you might find it just there.

Hugo Nomination Season is upon us, and will run until March 17. While I am, as usually, abysmally behind in reading current stuff, I do intend to nominate at least a few things. EscapePod, for one thing - and since there's some more spinning hours in the weeks ahead, I think I might find one or two more stories from 2016. In the "Best Related Work" category, Gillian Polack's "History and Fiction" is actually eligible... and I hope to find some more exciting stuff before the deadline. Hints about books and short stories published in 2016 that blew you away are utterly welcome!

While we're on the topic of reading, Aarhus Press Free Ebook of the month is "Elephants are not picked from trees", a book with stories about the taxidermied animals in Gothenburg National History museum.

Not free, but available again in digital version after they went out of print: past issues of Experimentelle Archäologie in Deutschland/Europa. You can have a look at the volumes on the EXAR website and click through the "buy" link to land on the publisher's homepage, where you can buy pdf downloads of individual articles from out of print volumes.

I'm home again from my TV thingie - and as expected, it was great fun! Everybody was really nice, and it did go very well. We did the three little scenes that were planned over and over again to get shots from all directions, so now I can almost repeat the dialogue in my sleep... maybe I'll mumble it tonight.

Apart from the "yay TV!" thing, I vastly enjoyed the afternoon for another reason as well: I'm always fascinated by stuff happening behind the scenes. For a few minutes of screen time*, there's a lot of logistics and work happening beforehand (such as scenes being done several times). There's lights and audio stuff involved (fancy microphones!), there's huge cameras and gear and many other things, of course, though none of that can be seen later on. It's a little like textile work, really - a lot of time, effort, and know-how goes into the finished product, though it all stays hidden to most people.

But the best of all the TV work, at least for me, are the people. All the TV folks I've yet had the pleasure to work with were not only totally nice, but also really happy with their job. They were also really, really good at said job, and very professional and efficient... which made it an utter joy to work with them. Today's audio technician, when I chatted with him, told me that it feels more like working among family than just colleagues - which is very much of how it feels to work in Living History. (I'm also really happy I didn't kill him by accidentally hitting the microphone, hidden inside my dress, with something making lots of noise!)

The scene will be part of the children's quiz show 1,2 oder 3 (which has been running since forever - I used to watch it when I was small), and it's planned for being aired on May 27, ZDF, at 8:10 in the morning. So if you can receive that programme and want to have a look at my part - you can!

 
 
*To give you an idea: the whole thing today took a bit more than three and a half hours, including setup time. (Fortunately, my Great Wheel wasn't as fiddly to get to run smoothly as it has already been - setup wasn't perfect, but it did spin well enough for the purpose. (I've also done much, much better yarn on it; it really makes a difference whether you can get into the flow or not.)) Screen time resulting from this work will be... drumroll... two minutes.

It's almost that time of the year... when most of us get a few days off work to hang out with friends and family. When the nights are longest, and the days shortest, and we know it will get lighter again, and warmer, in time.

The time of the year when all kinds of delicious things flood our tables, to be shared with loved ones and enjoyed together. The time of year to bribe small, peacefully resting, unsuspecting cats into letting you put plush toy hats on their heads and take silly photos.


Because that is obviously really necessary at this time of year, right?

Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Yule, the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, something else or nothing at all, I hope you will have a few nice days, filled with whatever activities (or non-activities) that make you happy, and spent with people whose company you enjoy, or in glorious solitude if you need a breather and prefer to be on your own for a while.

I hope you had a good year 2016 - mine certainly was good, and full of exciting things, plus quite a bit of change. Let's see what the rest of this year will bring, and the next one.

I'll be back on the blog on January 9, sharing tales of my shenanigans again, and I hope you'll be back to read them. Until then - have a glorious time, thank you for stopping by and sharing my 2016, and I'll see you on the flipside!

As you will have guessed, there's still spinning going on here... lots of spinning. The first large batch is nearing its end, and I'm enjoying audiobooks that have been sitting here for ages, waiting for their time.

While I am adding twist to poor unsuspecting fibres, here are some links for your delectation:

PHD Comics has a really funny graph about the number of authors in publications.

Knitting for Nerds offers a collection of 66 free Star Wars knitting patterns.

We've all heard of insects trapped in amber (hello, Jurassic Park!) but here's something even cooler: actual dinosaur feathers conserved in amber.

Finally, there's a malware targeting Android phones called "Gooligan", and it takes advantage of your google accounts and the information therein. Here's more info about the malware, and here is a checker where you can see whether you are affected or not.

And that's it for today. If you are looking for me, I'll be back at the spinning thing!