Hartenstein project is progressing, though I have not done much myself yet - but the cloth is being dyed and will soon be sent here, so I can get started with serious tailoring and sewing. I've already been told that the red, yellow and blue have all turned out very, very well, so I'm utterly excited to get my fingers on the fabric soon.

Apart from this waiting game, there's some other stuff for the project to be bought, planned, and prepared - a good way to spend the rest of the week, of which not much is left anyway, today being Wednesday already...

Today's prep day for Tannenberg - I'm going to shop for some food and maybe pre-pack a bit, so stuffing things into the car will go faster tomorrow. And I'm looking forward on hanging out with friends for a few days again (and probably take it as easy as I can, for a change).

I already have a new demo warp for tablet weaving - the old one I had somehow got roughed up over time and is not really what I like to show anyway, since the tablets are a mishmash of parchment and playing cards and the warp is thick red and beige wool yarn. The yarn itself is nice, mind you, but it's just neither the type nor the thickness that would have been used to weave a twill band with, so out into bad idea nirvana it goes.

The new demo band is made with silk thread in light pink and medium blue, is a dozen tablets wide (all parchment, this time) and woven width is about 5 mm or so (haven't measured yet). And while starting the weave, I found that after working with 42 tablets the last time I did serious tablet weaving, 12 of the little things is really fast and easy to handle, so my plan is to look into the suitability of tablet weaving as a demonstration at Tannenberg - although that does depend a bit on whether I can find two spots to fix my band to...

Oh, and by the way: Since we'll be leaving early tomorrow morning, there will be no blogging until next week.

I've had a nice time on Saturday in Hartenstein, showing textile techniques to the visitors of the museum and chatting about all sorts of textile-related topics. Sadly, the weather was very, very bad, which cut down severely on the number of folks coming up to the castle - but those that did come were very interested.

Experience tells me that the different textile techniques are not equally well suited to a crafts demonstration, and unfortunately, sewing is one of the crafts not too well suited - since most people have already done it themselves (mostly in school, to learn how it's done) or at least seen somebody sewing by hand, they tend to just glance over and then walk by. So for yesterday, I mostly wielded the hand-spindle and distaff - that is usually quite fascinating for visitors - and I thoroughly enjoyed spinning without checking for the right thread thickness after every sitting-height-to-floor-bit of thread spun, as I do for the Hallstatt project.


And now, it's back to the normal projects for today and the next two days, including prepping and packing for the medieval market and fair at Tannenberg, where we'll spend the second half of the week and the weekend.

After finishing my account-settling today, I ran to the non-computery type of work and actually totally forgot to blog - oopsie!

I have finished the first batch of the Hallstatt spinning yesterday, and as you might have noticed in the sidebar, the TGV is also completely finished, and no thanks to me - the Most Patient Man of them all sat down with needle, thread and the nice little tent and finished it off for me. And I'm utterly thankful - since I had not so much zest to sit down with the tent again.
And now I'll go back to preparing stuff for this afternoon, and to packing up things to send them away...

Somehow, not tidying up for a few days, then packing, then rushing off for a week, unpacking, ordering some stuff (more spindle sticks!) inbetween and getting some additional stuff and then having a heap of urgent work to do leads to... utter chaos in the workspace.

And somehow this has happened to my desk. Again. So I'm afraid that a good chunk of today's time will go into paying stuff, ordering more stuff (projects being worked on), putting stuff away and sorting through stuff. My bookkeeping wants to be finished, wool samples looked at, old paper thrown away or put into its appropriate folders.

Oh yes, and I have to prepare for tomorrow, since I'll be giving a little presentation about Daily Life in the Middle Ages at the DHB in Erlangen. In case you are nearby and interested, the presentation starts at 15:00 and takes place in the Hauswirtschafts- und Verbraucherzentrum, Hauptstr. 55 (that's in the Altstadtmarkt), and non-members of the DHB pay 3 Euro.

After spending all of last week, including the weekend, with what technically counts as "work" and having only had Saturday the week before the Forum week as a "mostly off" day, I've decided to not work today and instead have a three-day weekend. All those mails in my inbox can wait until Monday (sorry if you're waiting for a reply from me), as can all the other stuff waiting for my attention - sometimes, a girl needs to do what she needs to do.
So I'm finally getting around to relaxing, doing the washing, hopefully meeting a few friends in their coffee break from work, and spending a bit of time meandering through the town aimlessly. Somehow, having a 12-day-workweek really, really makes you look forward to having a day properly off, with nothing important, exhausting or time-consuming on the schedule.

And even the weather is fine outside... which means that in a few minutes, I'll close down the computer, stuff th necessities into my bag and I'll be off to the town. Hooray!

I'm quite happy that with coming back on Monday, my first regular work week is not full-length, but slightly shortened. Hooray for it being Thursday already - and I'm actually thinking about taking half a day off tomorrow to get some household stuff done and relax a bit.

But while I'm pondering that, you can ponder whether you would really like to have any of the York Archaeological Trust books that are out of print - because there will be a discussion about doing another print run for those in demand. Here's the "call for interested people" that reached me via the MEDTC-Discussionlist:

Next month, I will be at the York Archaeological trust and discussing their reprint policies. Knowing what volumes people would like to see back in print and how many people will buy them would be of great value in my conversations with them. If there are any volumes you would like to purchase, please send me a message off-line so that I can add you to the list I am bringing with me to indicate the market.

You can find books they publish at http://www.iadb.co.uk/pubs/pubs.php. Clicking on a particular book will take you to a page of additional information, including whether it is in or out of print. The two books most often mentioned so far are:
Textiles, Cordage and Raw Fibre from 16-22 Coppergate by Penelope Walton
http://www.iadb.co.uk/pubs/pubs.php?Action=Details&PID=54

Textile Production at 16-22 Coppergate by Penelope Walton Rogers
http://www.iadb.co.uk/pubs/pubs.php?Action=Details&PID=61

Please let others know of this. Thank you very much.

Cheers, Folo Watkins

 Please contact Folo via e-mail; the address is folo1(AT)sbcglobal.net. (For e-mailing, replace the (AT) with the appropriate thingie - I do not want to be the cause of excessive spamming of others.)

Needless to say, I have already expressed my interest in these two textile books...