When I'm at the fairs, it's always fun to explain the simple yet ingenious principle of the oillight to people. A lot of them get just as excited about these little things as I am - especially those with a bit of a green soul and a bit of a love for tea on teapot-warmers, as it's possible to replace tealights with the oillight.

Explaining these things, I quickly learned that most of the visitors are really new to this old concept that's almost forgotten today: place a swimming wick-holder on top of some vegetable oil which in turn floats on some water in a glass of your choice. The wick will burn until the oil is used up (or you extinguish it).

Because the concept has been almost forgotten today, I ended up taking an explanatory video that runs on a little tablet in my booth - to help explain the thing, and show how the lights actually look when in use (safety restrictions keep me from just lighting one - no open fire allowed at any of the fairs).

Now I've finally managed to go over the oillight videos and get them embedded into my shop, and while I was at it, I did a translation of both of them (which for the German fairs were, obviously, subtitled in German). Yay! So you can now watch the show on my Youtube channel, when you are looking at the oillights in the shop... or right here:

Only three days left before I leave for the first fair of the year- counting today. You michgt be able to imagine the state of things here, and if not, let me give you a hint: all kinds of things are stacked, heaped, drawn out, moved around, checked, and scattered over the place. There's packing material and flyers and there's the box with stuff that is helpful when setting up, and there's the immensely helpful master packing list for fairs that needs to be gone through.

There's also an insanely long list of stuff still to take care of. Much of it is just small things, but things that should not be forgotten, hence they are on the list. Some of the things are seemingly small things that I very much hope will turn out to be actual small things, or I will be in trouble. One of those is making a new Fummelkasten.

The Fummelkasten (which might be translated as "touchy-feely-box") is a thing I invented as a solution to the eternal fibre-selling problem: no spinner wants to buy fibres without touching them. Few people also want to buy fibres that have been touched by a gazillion people so they are all mated and felty, or have gotten disordered, or both. So I have a box with fibre samples of all the fibre types I am selling, and people can touch these to their heart's content, and wen they turn all matted and felty, I replace tha sample with a new one. The only problem is that with the addition of the Rhoen and Valais blacknose tops, I don't have enough space in the box anymore... so I have a new one, which needs finalising the inner structure, and then needs the samples, and of course an info sheet saying which fibre is which. And that you are welcome to touch.

Also, this sometimes gives me these priceless moments of a child going to the box, reading the "welcome to touch" message, and going ahead to compare the different fibres. Quite often, the parent then objects to this, and then gets educated by their offspring that in this case, it is perfectly fine to "look with the fingers". This has happened a few times already, and I always find it utterly hilarious!

I've been busy as a little busybody yesterday, winding yarns and making more distaffs and distaff DIY-kits and printing out info material and cutting reeds for spools for thread and counting things and casting new beeswax pieces and taking stock and re-ordering things, all in preparation for the Allgäuer Nadelstiche and Wollfest Hohenlohe, coming up the two next weekends. There's still plenty more to do - go over my display boards, check all the price tags, print out some new ones, and sort and pack even more things, but I think I'll get it all done in time. (There should be some writing going on, too, but alas, that has not happened the last few days.)

Today will see some more preparation for the fairs, and then it's the Easter weekend, which means I will be taking time off and having a breather, and hopefully the weather will be nice enough for a few longer hikes together with the most patient husband of them all.

So I'll be back on the blog on Tuesday - see you then, and have a lovely few days whether you celebrate Easter or not!

Sometimes, things tend to cascade into other tings to do. Today is a prime example of that happening. Things I did today?

Restocking my spinning kits was one of the tasks due. The wool bits were already stacked on the table (I did that when taking stock of my fibre supply a few days ago), so all that remained was... well. Printing out instructions, for one, which cascaded into going over the text and tweaking it a bit, and then having to tweak some more, and then the actual printing, which half-way done required me to change toner cartridge. Thank godness we had one on hand, ordered ahead of time, or I'd have gotten stopped dead right then and there. Then it was getting the proper weight-range whorls out of the unsorted supply, which meant getting out the scales, weighing them, and putting them onto spindle sticks. I also found that I'd run out of the sealable bags I use upstairs, so that meant a trip into the basement for some more, and I also brought back some more boxes which then had to get stamped with my address to make them ready for use.

Then it's the assembly line: Fold instructions (2 sheets of paper each), stick them into a bag, add three samples of wool, add a spindle, add a business card, press out air, seal the bag. Repeat until you run out of one of the ingredients, and then either get more of that one, or put the rest away and stop altogether.

Restocking something also means adjusting numbers in the shop system, which means I usually take a look at other stuff in there and check if everything is still correct... and that usually leads to litle tweaks and checks here and there.

Which, as we all know, tends to eat up time... so here I am, with still plenty of things on the to-do list for today, and the afternoon almost gone. But at least things are printed, new tweaks are made, some other things have made it onto the ever-growing to-do list, and I'm a little closer to being ready for the start of wool fair season.

There's still so much niddy-noddy stuff right in front of my nose, tantalizing, but, alas, other things have to happen before this. Soon, though. Soon.

Sometimes, things change unexpectedly, and while that can be a nuisance, it's somehow also an opportunity. Or at least t can be seen as such.

And something like that happened semi-recently, when my woodcrafter, who has been quick and friendly and reliable for years now, suddenly decided not to answer my mails anymore. Which is weird, and annoying, and I'm debating with myself whether to give them one last try now or not, but let's say that I am not amused at all about this situation.

Something similar happened to me twice ago. In one case, the crafter had changed his line of work, which I found out through a common contact later. In the second case, I never found out why - a supplier suddenly broke contact and there was no reaction anymore. Weirdly, I got a number of letters a good while afterwards asking me to update my customer information.

In the previous case, I was rather annoyed as well - but in the end, I found a new supplier, and the result was good - the linen yarn I carry now is even closer to the yarns used historically than what I had before, and it is at a better value as well.

So. Now I'm sitting here, using the opportunity to go through the wooden things that I offer and review whether I want to change anything, add anything, or take something out of the stock while I am at the search for someone new to make things according to archaeological originals.

As always, your input is welcome. Any wooden textile tools you're aching to have available?

It is well past time for me to get a new leaflet with information about what I do and offer, so I've spent some time going through pictures and writing some texts. Well, drafts, at least. Both of it is... not so easy.

Pictures-wise, I obviously want to use newer ones - from mid of 2016 or later, which cuts down on the number available quite a bit.

And texts... whew. I rarely feel like I'm good at writing my own ad copy, and I've frequently found that something I find to be very clear is not so clear to some other people. I also know I have a stack of older drafts somewhere around here which I just need to find again so I can have a look if they are any good; most times I find it easier to work with drafts when they have aged at least a bit.

So the big question is: Will I get pics, texts, and the time to put them together into a pleasing whole before the season starts?

You remember that ridiculously large package of wool I sent away recently?

It has returned from its adventures... looking still very large, and slightly (ahem, well, maybe more than slightly) battered.



And it contained wool, beautifully combed into top.

Lots of it. Obviously.



Of course I had to take a little bit of the fibre right away, and a spindle, and give it a little twirl - and just like I expected, it spins absolutely wonderfully.



So now I finally have Rhoen sheep wool and Valais Blacknose wool, already prepped ready to spin, in the shop! I'm ridiculously happy about this - and I hope other people will be just as much in love with these two rare sheep fibres as I am!