Links for you on this sunny monday!

The Chartered Institute for Archaeologists has issued a statement about the EU referendum and its outcome. Apart from this statement, the whole page is an interesting place to have a look around, if you are interested in archaeology or an archaeologist.

If you are looking for a really, really old tattoo business, you will get lucky in Jerusalem's Old City, where Razzouk Ink has been doing pilgrim's tattoos for about 700 years.

Matthäus Schwarz' Trachtenbuch, showing 16th century dress and fashion as worn by Matthäus, has been published in an English version by Bloomsbury. Read more about it in the NY Review of books or directly at the publisher's website.

 

I'm back home from the forum lanarum, which was lovely - there were lots of very nice visitors, the organisers were incredibly well-organised and nice and helpful, the workshop room had plenty of tables and was light and spacious, and there was a coffee source just a few metres from the stall. Margit and I also got to have delicious food in the evening and enjoy wonderful, sunny and summery weather, plus relaxing knitting time - so there was absolutely nothing to complain about, and plenty of things to make us happy.

[caption id="attachment_2548" align="alignnone" width="640"] My booth at the forum lanarum, with the tables crammed full of stuff - as usual...


I even got to have a corner table. I like corner tables - especially as people look at one part, then think they have seen it all, move on and - surprise! - there is even more around the corner. Makes me grin every time.

Another reason to be happy: Today is release date for The Middle Ages Unlocked in its paperback incarnation. The hardcover book has done well enough to get a paperback sister - so my and Gillian's thanks to all of you who bought a copy of The Beast and made this possible!

And now... I am going to go celebrate!

Well, off I go - off to be ready for the forum lanarum that starts tomorrow at ten! I was hoping for a little better weather to load stuff into the car, but it looks like it will continue drizzling down... good thing that it is only a short distance to the car, and the things I have to load are all packed up nicely.

While I am lugging around boxes and checking (and double-checking) my list of things to take with me, the cat has found a good use for one of the baskets I am not using this time around:


I use that basket when I am doing Living History events - but for the even more limited storage space I have at some of the wool fairs, modern crates without a taper towards the bottom are better suited, so my things are packed and stacked in those. Which means the cat can slumber on without disturbance...

I'm usually somebody who takes a good look at things, and sometimes a second good look. Or a good sniff. That, by the way, is something I probably got from my mum, and the cause of a goodly amount of amusement for the most patient husband of them all.

Imagine having something that needs an odour check. A sock, for example, that you are not sure about. Or some food that might have gone bad or might still be fine... obviously, someone needs to sniff it and decide. So. You bring your nose close enough, and in some cases... well, let's just say that in some cases, it is really not something you want to have in your nose for a second longer than necessary.

However... my mum has this weird thing where, when she has something that falls into this "smells abominable" category, she actually takes a second sniff. Just to make sure that the thing really smells as badly. And I seem to have inherited that habit... hence the cause of amusement. Especially since I don't really want to sniff it again, but it happens so fast my brain (fogged by the horrendous fumes from the first inhale) only kicks in after the second breath.

[caption id="" align="alignnone" width="393"] My consolation for this double-smelling is this XKCD comic. At least I can feel sciency when going "uargh!" for the second time.


Looking is much less of a thing in that regard, obviously. And many times, that second look is not necessary - but whenever I slack on that, it seems like something is always lurking to hit me with it.

Two cases in point: Yesterday, I finally sat down and did a batch of small updates to the website - one general update to fix a possible security issue, and a few smaller extension updates. Usually, I'm always taking a look at the site after this. Yesterday... I didn't. Which means I only found out this morning that everything looks dandy and fine in the backend (where I am most of the time when I am using the site, obviously, since that's where the work happens), but the frontend, which is the actual important bit of the site... only shows a blank page. Grrr.

(The fact that you are reading this now shows that I have fixed the issue in some way.)

Also yesterday, I was buying a set of two knickers... and found out at home that the one I tried on had the correct size. The other one, though (on the same hanger, as they were supposed to be a set) is a size larger. Sigh. So it's back to the shop now...

And the moral of the stories? Don't slack on your double-checks, or it might bite you in the behind. And that is never a nice thing.

I've been washing wool - and since I buy the wool from my suppliers, and sell it on after washing, sorting, and fluffing it up, I need to make sure to do the maths so my prices are okay. And I can tell you... wool maths is special. Also, it tends to make me grumpy, due to all this specialness. Want to share some of the grumpiness? Here you go.

Let's start with the basic inbuilt fudge factor that wool has. This lovely fibre can take up a lot of water before feeling moist, and while this is a glorious thing when you are wearing wool garments or sweating into them is a nasty thing when you are trying to weigh it. I try to make sure my wool is dry, and the weather is not humid, when I am weighing wool or portioning it out - but sometimes, there is no choice, so you have to estimate how much moisture is in the fibre.

So even clean wool can have weight differences due to different levels of humidity in the air. When you have raw wool, though, there's even more fudge factor.

One of the things the raw wool contains (apart from vegetable matter, which in the best case should not be relevant for weight at all) is lanolin. Then there's sheep sweat. In the bits that are usually removed, there can also be feces and urine. And there's also dirt, sticking nicely to the lanolin that coats the fibres.

So when you are buying a raw fleece, you are paying per kilo of fleece - and you might get a much, much lower yield out of your purchase, weight-wise, if things are unfavourable. For instance, if you buy a very dry skirted fleece (all the really dirty bits removed) with no vegetable matter, little lanolin and very little dirt, you can end up with a washed fleece that is about 15 or 20% lighter than the raw one. If, on the other hand, you pay for a fleece that still has a good bit of humidity inside, contains a lot of lanolin and a lot of dirt and has not been skirted fully, you can end up with a lot more loss in weight - up to 50%. That's half your raw fleece weight in washed fibre... which, if you have been counting on a specific amount of fibre to work with, can make for a nasty surprise indeed.

Just the amount of dirt and lanolin alone, by the way, can account for a lot - I've had a well-skirted fleece of about 3.8 kilo lose 1.3 kg of dirt and lanolin through washing; that's almost a third of the raw fleece weight.

Which means if you are buying raw wool, check it out thoroughly: Has it been skirted? Is there a lot of lanolin and dirt trapped between the fibres? Is it dry weather (cool temperatures are always less humid than warm ones) or is it humid? Count on a weight loss of at least 25% from raw fleece to washed fibre to avoid nasty surprises, and remember there will be some more loss when you are prepping the fibre for spinning or felting. When in doubt, do as usual when buying yarn or fibre for a project: add a generous amount on top, as a safety margin.

Wool maths. Grrr.

The cat is sleeping on my desk again. It must be a wonderful place to sleep (maybe I should try that some time, too?)

The stock-taking is not quite finished, which is due to things being replenished as I find out I'm running low... and there's no sense in counting up things like the spinning pack before making some more, right? (They are counted now. I did make some more. Next up: More tablet weaving cards. And more spindle whorls...)

Humid weather means that washed wool takes an extra-long time to dry out far enough so that it can be packed away safely. Sigh. It's not looking like the humidity will go down soon here... plus the frame I'm using to dry the washed wool on is slowly disintegrating more and more. I might need to make another one. Or find out how to fix the old one. In a way that works better, and lasts longer, than my previous attempts to fix it.

There's actual palpable progress on the Renaissance Shawl knitting - it stayed at home while I was away on holidays, but I've happily taken up work on it again. I'm now almost past the part that I find the most boring one on this piece - the gridwork below the big holes.


It's not getting less boring by the fact that I added more leaves in the previous parts - as that means more holes. And thus more gridwork. It does look spectacular, though:


Well. It would look even better fully blocked... but that will take a little more time. I'm planning to switch back to the nightblue yarn after this grid bit is done. Then it's just one more chart to go, plus the bind-off - and the shawl will be done!

(After that... I have this wool for a sweater project all stashed up. I sense a sweater in my future.)

Today is not as nicely warm and sunny as yesterday - the ideal weather to gear up with a cup of coffee or three and take stock.

I have a current count of things in stock, obviously, due to the webshop - but there's sometimes a little safety margin between the number of things listed in the shop and the things actually in stock - in case I need an extra because something gets lost in the post, or because something sold in real life versus via the online shop, for instance. Plus, from time to time, something gets lost or breaks while on an event... which means it's good to have a spare or two.

This, however, also means that occasionally I need to go through the actual, real, current stock and make sure that the numbers still match (or match as far as I intend them to). And since more fairs are coming up... now seems to be a good time. Especially since taking a look at all the things and counting them up means I can check their packaging, too - and in some cases re-pack into a smaller, or more sensible, or sturdier, or otherwise better way. Which is also a good thing to do before an event, as every big box takes up space, and space to store the stock is always, always less than it could be.

So you can picture my workspace cluttered with boxes and things in various states of packedness and unpackedness; with me and my list and my trusty cup of coffee in the middle of it. I'll spare you the picture of that clutter - instead, take this gratuitous picture of the sole sunflower that came up in the garden this year (even though I scattered seeds really generously):


It has grown into a very tall and very lovely plant - I'm just a little sad that it's the only one...