Technically, today is a holiday - but I am planning to sneak some textile-related, not entirely non-work into my day. Such as finally working some more on that hairnet that is not quite finished, but coming along nicely. And some more spinning.

Speaking of which - I have tried out a new spinning technique that I finally got to understand well enough to give it a go the day before yesterday. It's the one described in Kathelyne's blog (hint: I watched the videos, and that's what made it click for me).

I am absolutely, utterly in love with that technique, so much that I spent quite a bit of time spinning yesterday. This morning, I made a benchmark test similar to the spinning tests I did before - I have not looked at the spinning angle yet, but I have managed to spin 18 m of thread in half an hour, with high twist. That's not too bad for a technique that I started out with just two days ago, and I have quite a bit of hope that speeding it up a bit more will be possible...

A while ago, I hinted at something developing connected both to the Eternal Spinning Experiment and Ravelry.

Though I have been mostly away, and busy, and mostly without internet access during the last two weeks, that thing has gone on developing (huzzah for collaboration with others not absent during that time!) and it has, also during my absence, gone live.

Ladies and Gentlemen, may I present to you a new Ravelry group: SpinStats. The aim of that group is to use the immense number of (handspindle-)spinners on Ravelry to collect some data about things that are of interest for research into hand-spinning... such as: how much yarn do people pack onto a spindle?

Spinning styles and methods can differ wildly, as can fibres and thread thicknesses and whatnot. But we do need some more data than is currently available on hand-spinning processes, and Ravelry with its mass of spinners from all over the world is a wonderful place to collect said data. This is why we came up with the idea for SpinStats. We will post challenges to that group that anybody who likes can join - beginners, advanced spinners, we want you all.  The first challenge is already up and running, and it will hopefully tell us something about the normal cop weight that modern spinners put onto a spindle. Is there a difference between spinning styles? Or depending on the spindle? Fibre, maybe? If we are lucky and get enough data, we might gain some insight into this.

So if you are a hand-spindle spinner and would like to help in generating some data, please go join our group. (In case you are not on Ravelry yet - it's free to join. Should you not want to join for whatever reason, but still like to participate, just email me and I will give you the challenge data.) If you know hand-spindle spinners that might be interested, please pass on the word - the more spinners, the better. We have the first few cops submitted already, and I am absolutely thrilled to see the group up and running. (I'm still working on my cop, though, being a slow-ish spinner with thin threads, and so on...)

I am currently preparing that one-hour lecture about archaeological textiles... and one of the things I want to mention is, of course, textiles and gender.
For that, I was planning to include a few pictures of men spinning - and I also knew where to get them from... I thought. Unfortunately, the database of Corsair is being re-structured at the moment, and while it's possible to get at most pictures, you cannot get at all of them. There is a MS in the library that has two pictures of men spinning with spindle and distaff (MS 358, fols. 20v and 40r), and just that one seems to be inaccessible. Well, I'll make do with a few other pics.

However, the search of spinning pics made me wonder. Have you found any special spinning pictures as in "not the usual"? Such as top-whorl spindles, men spinning, uncommon ways to hold a spindle, and so on? (I'm not going for the "hit the guy with your distaff" variation here, though they can be really amusing.)

If so, please share them - I'd be very interested to see some more of the spectrum that is shown on medieval illustrations. You could post them on your blog and add a link to the comments, or if you prefer, send them to me by email (katrin at pallia dot net) and I will post them here. (Just for stating the obvious: Please include the usual data where the pic comes from, for copyright reasons as well as for letting others know where to find it.)

It has been ages since I have wanted to kickstart my woolmongering - I am in love with old wools, and even more in love with how a hand-made combed top looks and feels (and spins!). The Internet is full of other folks gushing about how a hand-made combed top looks, feels and spins as well. That taken together was the start of my offering handmade combed top.

The two wools I started out with were Rhoensheep and Racka sheep. Recently, I have also acquired two fleeces of Valaisian Blacknose, a white, longer-staple, very shiny wool that looks a bit like silk when spun. I'm offering those three wools as just washed and fluffed up a little, or as combed top. Now, hand-combed top is quite a bit of work, and thus it's more expensive than the industrially-made stuff, but it is something else to spin with really.

The only problem with my glorious plans of selling hard-to-get wools? My stall is quite tiny (as some of you might know), and the area for display is already full with all the other nice little things I have. So at first, I put up samples of the top and samples of single locks of the wool, but of course that is not the best way to sell quantities.Now I have finally gotten around to making a better display - the three wools from old(ish) sheep races, and I have supplemented them with industrially-made carded batt of Tyrolean Bergschaf and that ubiquitous "calibration standard" of the modern spinner, industrially-made Merino top. It's still being worked on (the display, not the top), but I'm positive I'll be able to finish it today. And if I can be really productive, I might even get around to shredding some of the wool that is below par to offer it as stuffing/filling wool... and that would make sack number six.

I'm also planning to offer a mixed bag with some of each wool in there, though I'm not sure yet whether I should add a bit hand-combed top as well, or just the washed wools; and how much would be a good amount. (Your suggestions, as always, are welcome!)

I woke up today to a wintry-looking world again - it has snowed more than 12 cm by now, snow is still falling, and everything is covered in a soft, fluffy layer of white. The cat has ventured out anyway, and she will probably be quite wet when she comes back. But that's not what you are here for, right? You are here for... juicy links. Here you go.

Coming up in the V&A in March is a new exhibition called "Treasures of the Royal Courts", showing among other things treasures from the court of Henry VIII.

And in case you prefer reading about stuff right now instead of looking at it some time in March: I have recently re-discovered a link to the Electronic Theses Online Service the British Library offers. You can search the EThOS database for authors, keywords, the usual; and quite a few of the theses are downloadable for free.

Finally a little bit of curiosity: have any of you experience with spinning on a spindle held (and turned) in the hand? If so, what do you like about that technique - are there advantages to turning in hand compared to a suspended spindle?

It has snowed again - a deep, white, totally beautiful cover on everything. It looks really nice and soft and fluffy and almost cuddly from inside here.
The cat, it seems, has finally come to the conclusion that she will really be allowed back inside even when there's snow on the ground, and has gone off for her morning round in the usual length of an hour or more.

She was abandoned sometime during last winter, and found last year in February, and would not go out into the snow at all at first, and then not  for more than a few minutes at a time - so we speculate that she had bad memories connected with the snow. Accordingly, we took extra care to both encourage her to go out and let her back in again as soon as she wanted to come inside. Which sort of still holds on, so now I'm getting up and checking for cat ears in front of the door rather frequently.

In non-weather-related news: there is progress on the writing front, for both projects. Not much of that is due to yesterday, though, because I had a rather nasty headache and did not get much done in consequence.

I have also done some more spinning on the Great Wheel. This has led to me coming more and more to appreciate how absolutely and enormously crucial the quality of the fibre and the quality of the fibre preparation is for flawless spinning on the wheel, at least if you are not really proficient at it. The search for the perfect-rolag-making technique is still going on here, but I feel like I have gotten much closer.

Since I started spinning with the Great Wheel, I have read about carding techniques and looked at carding instructions and people carding quite a bit, but the up to now best set of instructions is "Handcarding with a Light Touch" by Carol Huebscher Rhoades. It's available as part of an e-book offered by spinningdaily.com; the .pdf can be downloaded for free after you register with the site. (I did, and I do not regret it due to this article. They have a few other free instructional e-books as well. There is also a (not-quite-but-almost-daily) newsletter that they send out with info about new free e-books, though it also includes (and is mostly) advertisement for courses, dvds, books and other things they would like you to buy.)

I'm still struggling with data floods - I have solved a few small problems only to find more (of course there are more). Some of them, I guess, are the usual things - details so small that they are not listed in the normal tutorials because, duh, everyone knows that is how you do it. I know I have been guilty of the same thought in some instances, but alas, I also know the other side much, much too well.

And somehow, I can understand why there is so few statistics in archaeology or historical sciences in general, even where something like a statistical analysis would be good. The learning curve, oh, it is steep. (Or I am a little stupid - but since others agree with me, I'll go with the former assumption.)

As of now, the analysis and visualisation I've been able to do has not yielded any new and really evident things (apart from the usual - that spinners are individuals and quite, quite unpredictable).

Ah, what I would give for a few minions. One to do the boring scanning work that is now left to do. One to work out which programme best to use for the visualisation and give me an intro to it. One to finish entering books into my book database. One to make me coffee.

Okay - I can live without the last one. But the others! That would be so good!