There is a German idiom that goes "Erstens kommt es anders und zweitens als man denkt" (literally: Firstly things will come out differently than secondly you planned), and that was a bit the case with our Textile Forum planning this year. This has lead to - you have already noticed - a bit of a delay with our Call for Papers, which we originally had wanted to post a bit earlier than now.

The good news is that we have finally got a date and a museum to host us - we will have the Textile Forum from 12-18th of September 2011 in the Urgeschichtemuseum Asparn an der Zaya, and I'm currently working on the website and CfP. You can expect the Call to go out tomorrow, and the website to be updated accordingly. And we're very much looking forward to the Forum in 2011!

It turned out that in spite of the payment thingie always giving me the virtual finger (as in "your payment didn't come through"), the very first try actually had already succeeded. The next tries, though, didn't - partly due to my spending limit on the credit card which is ridiculously low on purpose, partly due to a security warning at the card issuing center. And I must say that even though I was a bit miffed at how paying didn't work as smoothly as I was used to, I'm happy to know that there is somebody watching over the card transactions and taking a closer look if something seems to be out of control.

So now it seems to be all cleared up, I'm booked for the conference, I booked a flight already as well, and I can go to Leeds. Hooray! Now I only need to figure out what to attend there out of the gazillions of different sessions, papers, and special evening events. I'll probably feel utterly lost at such a huge conference - by far the largest one I'll ever have been to.

The weekend is approaching again, and I have like a billion little things that I need to take care of before it is here - like sending off the paper version registration for the Leeds conference.

It turned out that my inability to register and pay with my credit card (or debit card, since that didn't work as well) must be due to some glitch in the general system that makes payment procedures seemingly uncompatible with my issue type of cards. Which is totally weird since I have used that card(s) for paying in the rest of the world (including England) before. However, all is well that ends well: I found out why it doesn't work, I will still get to register and pay by bank transfer, which should really work (keeping my fingers crossed),  Update: No, I'm still wrestling with the system. They did charge my credit card after all... and now I'm sending this blog post off come what may. I'll tell you how it all worked out on Monday (I hope)...

We all know that The InternetsTM are a non-safe place, so I try to be as safe as possible. That includes the use of Firefox with the NoScript add-on, regular updates to safety-relevant programmes, and so on.

So I'm all for security. Unless... well, unless said extra secure methods keep me from actually paying for something over the Internet. Which is how I spent my morning (and which is why I am only blogging now, not two and a half hours ago as I had planned). I have succumbed to the lure of Leeds and now have been trying to register using the online form... and what can I say? It could be a little more user-friendly, maybe, as in not giving me a time-out that requires me to fill in all the forms again. Or a second time-out. Or forget everything already filled in when I log out. Or actually transmit my card data to my card issuer so that they can authorise the payment. Gah.

It does take a bit of stuff to get me pissed off, but I'm actually a little more than moderately pissed right now. Booking for a conference (or a flight, or whatever) is something that always sort of racks my nerves, so I like to have it run smoothly, not need to try it a gazillion times without success.

Well. I mailed the conference team with my woes, and I hope that it will get solved soon. Anyways (and if I have to mail in the .pdf and pay the extra process fee they charge for not using the online-booking system), I will go to Leeds Congress. Anyone else coming?

Firstly, for all those of you who are planning to put in a visit to the V&A before they close down the textile study room, a heads-up: I have been sent additional information by two friends who went there and found that, without any further notice, the staff closed the study room at noon.

So they recommend that

any colleagues intending to make a special visit to the collection are *strongly* advised to contact the museum first to check that the room is likely to be open : they probably won't give any promises, citing the usual weasle phrase "lack of resources", but pointing out that the room will soon be closed anyway might help.

So please phone ahead if going to the V&A to save you a disappointment.

Secondly, there are more conferences coming up: The Braid Society meeting in 2012 and the Leeds Congress 11-14th of July 2011. I have made the mistake of looking at the preliminary programme up on the website, and now I'm totally lusting to go there. If only beaming were invented already!

Thirdly, I spent part of the weekend having a load of fun with the new "in" sports discipline, Extreme Hedgehog Wrestling. Here's photo proof of it:


And this is the hedgehog in rest:



The thing lying around on the table in addition to the needles and yarn is a count-down d20* that I use for counting knitting rounds. (For those of you not enlightened by roleplaying friends sharing their dice and knowledge, countdown dice have the numbers arranged so you can easily find the next one in sequence - as opposed to normal dice where you have to hunt for the next number.)



It's a pattern that was published in Knitty a while ago**, and contrary to my usual approach, I actually did not change anything when knitting it. Well, except using dpns instead of the recommended two circs, and messing with the needle size : yarn thickness ratio to get the correct gauge. (Hint: My needles are, to a normal knitter's mind, way too small for the yarn.) After I broke one needle tip during the wrestling session start, I sort of tried to err on the side of caution in regards to the number of needles (and therefor reduced stress on the individual needle).Hedgehog Wrestling then is the natural side effect of this.

* A 20-sided die. Which is plenty for most knitting purposes and a very standard type for a lot of roleplaying games.
** I won't tell you what it is yet, because it's intended as a gift, and you never know who reads this blog. I'll show the finished thing once it's been received, though.

Just in case that you are in the region of Mannheim this weekend and don't know yet to do with your time, I'll be at the Reiss-Engelhorn-Museum on Saturdy and Sunday together with Nobilitas. From 11 to 18 o'clock, you can not only see us at work doing historical crafts but also try your own hand at these things.
Now... it's still February, which is usually not the warmest month of the year. Weather forecasts say it will be warmer towards the weekend, with up to 10° C in Mannheim, but I have nevertheless planned to bring cold-weather-compatible work (also suitable for having others try).

Unfortunately, this cold-weather-compatible work means that I will have to build some stuff for it today. So if you're looking for me... I'll be over there, with the saw and the hammer and the drill.

The V&A, the museum with the wonderful public study room for textiles, has cut down on accessibility on the frames and will close the public study room completely on March 1, 2011; after this will follow the closure of all the other textile and fashion-only rooms during the course of the year.

Bad news, but it's followed by good news: The closing down is just to move all the precious items into a new facility, the Textiles and Fashion Study and Conservation Centre at Blythe House in Kensington Olympia. It's scheduled to open late summer 2013, so we'll have to wait two years for full accessibility again - which is a very short time to move one hundred thousand individual museum textiles.

If you want to learn a bit more about this, you can read ThistleThreads' blog entry, where I first got the information, or get your information fix straight from the Horse's mouth at the V&A website.