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Harma Blog Break .
29. April 2024
Isn't the selvedge something to worry about in a later stage? It seems to me a lot more important th...
Beatrix Experiment!
23. April 2024
The video doesn´t work (at least for me). If I click on "activate" or the play-button it just disapp...
Katrin Spinning Speed Ponderings, Part I.
15. April 2024
As far as I know, some fabrics do get washed before they are sold, and some might not be. But I can'...
Kareina Spinning Speed Ponderings, Part I.
15. April 2024
I have seen you say few times that "no textile ever is finished before it's been wet and dried again...
Katrin How on earth did they do it?
27. März 2024
Ah, that's good to know! I might have a look around just out of curiosity. I've since learned that w...
the market stall
SEP.
29
0

Off To Shenanigans!

work-related the market stall papers and lectures travel workshops markets and fairs presentations and talks

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that when things come to happen, they do it in masses.

Ahead of me are three-and-a-half very full weeks, where I'm mostly away from home, doing things - giving workshops, holding presentations, doing museum inventory work, and, to balance out the work, having a few days off with the Most Patient of All Husbands inbetween. (I'm quite sure they will be needed...)

It's wonderful and exhilarating to be off and about and among people once more, though I admit I'm also a little anxious about this. There's still a pandemic happening, even though it is getting easier to ignore it all the time. I have masks, though (really well-fitting for a change, I'm quite amazed) and have just tested negative (something the Spinntreffen organisers were asking for, to self-test before going there), and I hope that I will have a sufficiently effective combination of being sensible and being lucky.

At the moment, I'm in the last bits of prep for the Spinntreffen of the Handspinngilde this weekend, and that means packing the car, printing out lists, and finishing putting together the workshop tools and materials. So once this post is done, I will hop out into the garden and cut some willow and hazel rods to serve as bow looms.

If you're interested in my presentation for the Hansemuseum Lübeck and the FGHO, it will be streamed live on YouTube on October 11, starting at 18:00. There's also still tickets available for those of you who prefer to be right in the room with me in Lübeck.

I will be back on the blog on October 24, when all my away missions are done and I'm back home - and I hope you will have a good time until then!

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FEB.
28
1

Everything Is Better With Chocolate.

the market stall

We're living in a crazy world right now, and I don't know how it is with you, but I'm double as happy about anything nice and good happening these days as usual. Good news are just so, so welcome.

So it is twice as nice that there is chocolate to brighten up my day - and possibly yours, too. How and why? 

Fairafric is a German-Ghanaan company that produce organic, fair-trade chocolate - directly and from bean to bar in Ghana. Which means that most of the economic value actually stays in Ghana and is not added in some other, much richer country. They are using a lot of solar power and go for sustainable production and sustainable packaging. These are all good things, if you ask me - and the chocolate is, on top, also very tasty.

Since I am a firm believer in the fact that everything is better with chocolate... I'm extremely delighted to be part of a get-to-know-us campaign for them. In the form of having a number of their milk choc with hazelnut bars to pack into the orders from my webshop that I send out.



I hope this will brighten a few more people's days!

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FEB.
18
0

Even More New Spindle Sticks!

the market stall textile techniques and tools spinning
I've not only restocked the pearwood spindle sticks, there's actually a new type in the shop as well: A 20 cm long stick with a thicker belly, modeled after one of the many sticks found in the Mühlberg-Ensemble in Kempten.



They are available in maple and in birch wood. If you've been looking for a stick that is a bit thicker and thus will accommodate whorls with a larger hole, or something shorter than the long sticks but longer than the short ones, this might just be the one for you...
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FEB.
03
1

Shiny, shiny, shiny!

the market stall dyes and dyeing all the gory details
I'm all excited - the first batch of my embroidery silk in new colours arrived today, dyed lovingly and carefully by my friend and colleague Margit from Alte Künste. And she has managed to dye the most gorgeous yellow I've ever seen.



It's like liquid sunshine. It's like textile gold. It's warm and soft and it's yellow, yellow, yellow.

There's a lovely purple as well - and I have not yet wound off the red and the pink from their skeins into something better storeable and handle-able. Winding silk that fine, I have learned, can be a real challenge if you don't know what you are doing. The skeins, even if handled like raw eggs, tend to tangle a bit during the dyeing process. As this thread is flat silk that has been totally de-gummed, it snatches and tangles easily. My first tries at winding off silk from the skein, years ago, were the total catastrophe. I tried to do that with one of the common four-armed skein holders or swifts. Well. I very quickly found out that there's a reason why Japanese silk swifts have more than four arms... so I did upgrade to a swift with more arms, and that does make a huge difference. It's still a fiddly task. (Weirdly, it's also one that I find very hard to stop. Just past this one snag. Just until the next hitch. Just this one more. Just past this knotty tangle. Oh, is it half past three already? Oops. Well, I can do a few minutes more...)

Once  all the new skeins are wound, I can portion the silk off on the 10 m rolls for the shop, and take photos, and then you'll be able to buy it.

For today, though, I'll sit next to it for a bit longer and go "my preciousssssss"...
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JAN.
28
0

New Sticks.

the market stall spinning and now for something completely different
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.)
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JAN.
20
0

That Was A Busy Day!

the market stall all the gory details
Today was gobbled up by all kinds of preparation tasks for the two upcoming online workshops - especially making a few more distaffs, and some more pins for said distaffs.

 


It's been a while since my last pin-making session, so I was really looking forward to this. It's a fun task, if a little fiddly at times, and winding the coil for the pinheads takes a bit of a toll on the fingers... but I still like it a lot. (And I only lost one pinhead somewhere on the floor...)

I really like the simple look of these. Mind you, I also enjoy pins with fancy heads, and pins with pressed heads, but these are charming in their own way somehow.

So - pin-making, distaff-making, distaff-dressing, cutting the fabric for the sewing workshop, and packing things in boxes to be sent off. More boxes tomorrow - plus hopefully some time for the overdue book-keeping, and a few other desk and writing tasks.
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JAN.
17
0

I'm back!

work-related the market stall behind the (website) scenes
I'm back from the winter break - so: Happy New Year to all of you!

There's a bit of catching up to do, obviously, and one of the most important tasks of today was finish packing all the orders that came in during the break. I've been working on that, and a bunch of other things, the past few days already. There were hopes that I'd actually get a bit more of the things on the list done, but website relaunches are a notoriously obstinate thing. (There's progress, though.)

Packing has been successfully done, though, and the things are going to the post now.

There's also some other shop stuff on the line, including a few new things to be sorted into stock - I have a new shape of spindle sticks. Those need to be described, and photographed, and put into the shop. I also have to take new photos of the pearwood spindle sticks, as the current batch is much, much more varied in colour and texture than the previous one:

[caption id="attachment_6666" align="alignnone" width="201"] New pearwood spindle sticks for the shop - now in a larger range of natural wood variation than before...


Already in there are the new online courses, both in German: One for Medieval Spinning on February 6, and one for sewing techniques on March 6.
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