I'm making progress on several of my front lines, though not as fast as I would like to - for example, there is still a lot of stuff in my car from the weekend, waiting to get carried back inside and put away (maybe washed before, or sorted out) until next time.

Meanwhile, the product line ideas are coming in (and suggestions are still welcome, if you know of something textile-related that you'd like to see in a stall), the summary is getting translated, I have about caught up on missed sleep and am generally quite happy, if a little whelmed by things still left to do and think out. And that also means I'll keep you updated here, but will probably not present a very sciency or time-consuming blog post during this and next week - even if that bugs me, because I have a beautiful idea lying around half-prepared in the draft section. (Now that I've hinted at it, you can look forward to that like I do, and I'm not alone in waiting!)

Today's blog is a little later than usual, because I came home rather late from the Lamboy-Fest in Hanau. In case you are living in the Hanau area, I can tell you: it's well worth a visit. A colourful, beautiful street festival with music, walking acts (creative and fun walking acts with stunningly beautiful costumes) and loads of exquisite international food. And, of course, we added our "mobile museum" to the scene, on a totally well-suited location. Our "artisan's market square" was on the little square in front of the Goldschmiedehaus in Hanau, right inside the Lamboy-Fest area and yet separated enough by the change of city topography to be something special.

We had lots and lots of visitors, and I found myself either drinking, eating, or talking, demonstrating (again) making of medieval hairnets. Filet, I find, is very well suited for demonstrating medieval textile stuff, because it catches people's eyes and makes them linger. And then they are mine to talk to! (Insert maniacal laughter here.) But I also had quite a few talks and explanations about medieval sewing and garments - and a lot of visitors asked me whether there are any customers for my filet work nowadays. Which was a wonderful opening for me to explain about textiles as status symbols and that most people today will decide in favor of the modern status object when deciding whether to invest the sum (about 700 Euros upwards) in a medieval knotted hairnet or in Gucci sunglasses, a new-fangled TV, a new computer, a pair of designer jeans, you go on with the list. And that to my regret, knotted hairnets usually lose this contest today - while in the middle ages, there would have been many more customers!

And isn't that a nice way to drive the importance of medieval textiles home to unsuspecting visitors?

Unfortunately, printing in colour is really, really expensive, so for the thesis publication, my editor and I agreed on a reasonable number of colour plates. Which means that there are quite a few colour illustrations that have to be converted to grayscale, since I just kept all colour pics for the submission copies. So most of yesterday was spent converting colour figures and pictures from my thesis to monochrome pics while making sure that the important details stay discernable.

Picture editing work is half exciting and half mind-numbing. The same processes and checking files for the same things over and over again makes it mind-numbing - but tweaking contrast, brightness and gamma curves for best results has to be done for each pic individually, so it's nothing for a batch job. Sometimes the details come out even better in the monochrome version - that is when it gets really exciting - while sometimes it's a battle you can hardly win. Because I knew that not all would transfer nicely to monochrome, I checked first - there should be enough colour plate for all the really difficult pics in addition to the pictures that I want printed in colour for other reasons (like, usually, exciting colours on real garments).

So... I made good progress with the conversions, though there are still quite a few left to do. Good thing my thesis has only four hundred and eight pics!

A huge box blocks the entry to my study - wool for the spinning experiment has arrived! We now have wonderful wool for the experiment, one very fine Merino and one medium-fine wool, all beautifully prepared, thanks to the Wollmeister. With the last batch of test whorls it now really feels as if serious progress is taking place.

Speaking of which, since I'm off to Hanau tomorrow for the "Lamboy-Fest", I'd better make some serious progress on the rest of my work...

Parallel to all the other things going on work-wise, I'm using some of my time to build a product line for medieval textile fun. A product line, of course, centered on
a) things that have their use for medieval sewing, tailoring and other stitching and
b) things that are not readily available in gazillions of other stalls or internet shops for Living History. Well, the latter part should not be such a problem, since there are not so many offers for sewing stuff around. Ever noticed how sparsely stocked "sewing and needlework" sections are, compared to "weapons and armour"? Which also means that b) encompasses all those things that I've been searching unsuccessfully for years. Like handmade steel needles, in a size where you can actually use them - and for sewing, not as assassination tools. Like netting needles, formed after medieval finds and so smooth it is a joy to work with them. Like real gold thread in thicknesses that are truly medieval (which, by the way, is quite, quite fine - about 0,2 mm). Like fine smooth linen thread and extra-fine silk thread for sewing. Coloured fine wool and silk threads for stitching - sewing or embroidery - or fine weaving, coloured with natural dyes (that will still take a bit, though). Like heavily weighted sewing cushions ("Nähsteine") and good, firm pin-cushions, no modern techniques used in making them, of course. And proper, spindle-shaped spindles for your favourite stickless whorl. Small trinkets like needle-cases and thimbles that are seldom offered. Have I forgotten something?

And once I have all this... I'll see if I get rich or ruined trying to sell it.

The heap of work lying before me (and the list listing even more things to do) has not only stayed the same, but grown yesterday. Actually grown... and since quite a few of these tasks are things that take a bit longer than five to ten minutes... I can't complain of boredom. Add to that the fact that on a first day back at work after vacation I never seem to accomplish much, I'm feeling a bit inundated.

At least I managed to fetch the next test whorls for the spinning experiment, nicely fired, and I already did a short test run. I won't tell how it went in detail, but the reference whorl (about same weight and same moment of inertia as an archaeological object) spun very nicely. I also made some progress on the translation part, did a little bit of proofreading of an article, and wrote the obligatory few e-mails. And now for more of the same agenda.

Yesterday I had to spend some of my work time away from the computer, which resulted in a ginormously long list of things to do - and now I'll see how much of it I can tackle and cross off today, before the week is over. And this has led me to think about productivity and productivity-boosting.

Today I have actually managed to try out one of the productivity hints floating around over the internet: Don't read email first thing in the morning. I think I'll give this another try on Monday, because working for an hour straight before looking into the mail the first time really feels nice - like having achieved something already before taking care of the important and (many more) not-so-important mails. And who would mind a bit more productivity?