I'm making good progress, but I'm still behind - at least that's how it feels to me. A few extra (and time-sensitive) things to do during the last days have sort of nudged me behind schedule; not far, but far enough that I get the queasy "Oh no I'm behind" feeling.

So... although there is some progress on the blue hairnet with pearls (which I'm hoping to finish today) and some more progress on the exhibition stuff and finally some more progress with the product line (though not all ready for telling yet), you only get this short text post today, and I'm off to write some more, net some more, weave some more, cut and edit the last videos (with short demonstration snippets of the textile techniques for the exhibition) and so on. And once the hairnet is really finished, you'll see a photo of it here, of course.

I'm getting to appreciate more and more all the work going into designing an exhibition. I've been involved in several exhibitions in the last years - writing articles, helping to decide on exhibits, and making garments to exhibit. But I've never done most of the conceptual work on my own.

Luckily, I'm in the last stages: Packing out and putting together the exhibits for the several places and topics, and writing up the labels/descriptive texts for them. And I should be in the last stages, since the exhibition will next week on Sunday!

I've been sewing for ages now with Gütermann Silk thread (the thread on the blue plastic spool) whenever I needed sewing silk. Why? Because it's available in almost every second sewing shop around here. But a few things did irk me about it. First of all, it's on a blue plastic spool - that makes it easy to tell the silk thread from the cotton and polyester variations coming on the same spool type, but not so easy to use the thread on medieval events. Then it is - of course - coloured chemically. And then it's just so thick and bulky! Fine for tablet weaves, but for sewing really fine silk? Nah. And for authentic hairnets, too, it's just too thick.

So a while ago, I found out about YLI silks - the sort they call "Silk 100", to be precise. It comes on plastic spools (white and quite short-and-thick, this time) and is much lankier than Gütermann. So I was happier for a while - but the plastic spool problem still applies (and I was not about to re-wind 200 metres of fine silk thread from a plastic spool to a wooden one, I'm one of those rather hiding their spools). And while YLI says it's the finest silk thread on the market, it is still a little thick for making hairnets. And while we're at it, I'd like a finer thread for the really fine stitching on thin silks (think Pongé 05 quality here) and for couching works or sewing something on "invisible". So now YLI is not the thinnest thread on the market anymore, at least not on the medieval markets!


Here you see from left to right: All the money I will have left after investing in this market stall, Gütermann sewing-quality white silk thread, YLI Silk 100 in white, and my extra-thin silk.

It will come wound in portions on paper cores, so while it is not properly medieval, it's at least not plastic. The thread is fine for making hairnets, attaching small embroideries to a garment, for using as weft thread in tablet weaving with thicker silks if you would like your motifs a little less lengthened, or for stitching really fine silks or - of course - couching work. The only thing left to decide for me now is how much of the thread to use for one portion: one hundred metres? two hundred metres? More or less?

I'm away on rather large errand runs today and tomorrow, and I did not find the time to prepare blog posts in the last days, so I'm taking time off. Regular blogging will resume on Monday. So have a nice, relaxing, fun weekend everybody!

Today's choice for the blog presentation: Beeswax. Everybody needs beeswax! Each sewing bag, pouch, chest or other sewing-goods-container needs a piece of beeswax! And because carrying a candle for that is not the most practical of things, and because there are not so many nice chunks of good-quality beeswax on the market, these are the latest addition to my product line:



In case you don't know why beeswax is a sewing tool: It is invaluable to wax threads for sewing, especially linen threads. It makes them much more durable, they are less prone to fraying where they rub against the needle's eye, and the thread will not kink itself into knots as easily. Plus it smells heavenly! Just draw the thread across the chunk of wax once, and you are all set. Use of beeswax in textile work is documented for medieval times through different accounts, and once you are used to lightly waxing threads, you won't want to be without it anymore.

You can also use beeswax to neaten the edges of fine cloth - though that does take quite a bit of practice, and of course that will eat up your chunk of beeswax much faster than drawing threads through them.

I'm slowly gaining on my gigantonormous list of "To-do-and-double-quick" and finally feel as if things are looking up a bit. Whew.

And speaking of "looking up" - in this case, looking up from the computer screen and resting the eyes and stretching - a friend pointed me to a neat little programme a few days ago. It's called "Workrave" and intended for those folks (like me) who never manage to take a break when necessary. The programme can be personalized for your preferred work time and break time lengths, and it will then nag you to take micropauses and longer rest breaks. And best of all, the icon is a little sheep, so it's perfect for fabric freaks. While you can ignore the pauses, it makes taking a short break now and then so much easier, and that can really improve performance. Which is something I can always use.

If you are spending as many hours a day in front of the computer, you might also enjoy using workrave as a small helper. It runs both on Linux and Windows, it's completely free, and you can download it here. Healthy computer working to you!

When I learned tablet-weaving, I used either beer mats or butchered playing cards. For my small hands, beer mats are definitely too large, so I went over to playing cards cut up and punched with holes for good. They are slim, lightweight, quite sturdy and cheap - the only problem is that you have to cut them to squares and punch holes. And as I'm a bit demanding about my hole placement, wanting them all in the same place, this did always take some time; time spent to prepare weaving equipment that was obviously so not historical. So I've been looking for alternatives for a long time now.

I tried to weave with small (really small) bone tablets one time - they are nice, smooth and good-looking, but they are also tiny with their side length of 2,4 cm, and I did not manage to get a smooth weaving sequence with the tiny things in a band with more than just 5 or so tablets. I also got wooden tablets made as a present once - again, carefully cut, bored and sanded for smoothness, and just the right size to weave. However, wooden tablets add a huge amount of bulk to the tablet-stack and are quite heavy.

So despite all these tries to use more medieval materials for the tablets, I always returned to my trusty playing-cards for weaving work. Since I don't weave for show on medieval events, it was never a problem. But there's a difference between not needing and not wanting... and I wanted.

And now I have - and I have to spare, so they are on offer at the market stall. I present to you the museum-compatible, slim alternative to cardboard and playing-card tablets: Weaving tablets made of parchment.


These tablets measure 6 x 6 cm, a convenient size when weaving and large enough that you can handle them well and even weave with the tablets standing on the corners, for tubular or other special weaving actions. The parchment is prepared by hand, in one of the last traditional parchment manufactury. In this case, it is calf parchment. Rounded corners for smooth turning, large holes for ease of setting up the warp.

The tablets, being parchment, can be marked, coloured, scribbled on - whatever you desire. With a thickness of about 0,6 mm for most of them, they are slim enough so that handling a larger stack is easily possible - but stiff and wide enough to grasp them easily. So... no more excuses about not having acceptable weaving tablets to work with!