After some searching, I did find a helpful article on how to fix the issue - a hack disabling all the system hardware parts that might cause driver issues (which were the reason for the hang-up). I tried this-but to no avail. So I tried again, disabling more and more things, and at one point it did work.

I had to get some other things done at that point, though. So I tried to access the Windows Easy Transfer file I had created, in the hope of leaving my data over smoothly - only to find out that the external disk drive that I had saved it on did not work anymore. So not on the list of things I had needed!

So what to do? That was easy: find, buy and install a recovery programme, scan the drive to find that all files can be found, then go into town the next day to get a new external drive, and wait for the file recovery programme to finish so it can copy the found things to the new disk.

Which was a good plan, but after almost 36 hours of scanning for files to recover, the new installation of Windows graciously treated me to an automatic update with a system restart, resulting in all scan data being lost. Meanwhile, though, I had a) dis­covered that there is indeed a programme designed to migrate things, including working programmes, from one computer to another - and remembered that we actually had used that before, with good success. The only little problem about this was to find the license Code again-and then, it turned out, we had to ask for a reset of the code from support (which went very quickly and smoothly); and b) I really needed to get some work done for which I needed the programmes on the old version. Which meant I saved the system as it was then, did a rollback to my old Windows, and got some work done there. In addition, I discovered that the "broken" external disk was still working fine on the old system. Weird - but not unwelcome; I could do a checkdisk now, fix the issue that had caused the trouble, and save the long scanning time and recovery process.

Then I did a system backup again, prepared the migration file, and started to do the installation thing of Windows again. Whatever I had done the one time it did work, though, I was not able to reproduce it. After the second try, I gave up, went back to the system backup I had done just in case (good thing I had!), and went on from there, first updating, then cleaning up the new system and then migrating. Which took insane amounts of time.

So basically, there was an enormous amount of waiting interspersed with deep sighs, tries to get things working, more sighs, and even more waiting. There were numerous rollbacks and system restores. There were plenty of backups at different stages (and what a good thing, too!), and about three days of work-time lost to these shenanigans.

Now things seem to be more or less back in working order. I'm quite sure I will find some more glitches and problems in the next few days or weeks, but for now, I'm able to start the most important programmes, my mail is running, my browser data (except for the auto-fill in of some passwords, which were not migrated) is all there, and it mostly feels like my old familiar home system again. Whew.

I am dreading, though, the day when I will need to migrate to a newer version of Windows, as support for Win7 is ending this year...

Happy New Year everyone!

I'm only sort of back today - the plan was to fix my computer issues between the years, and that has, unfortunately, not worked very well. In fact, it has worked so much not well that I am still struggling with stuff. You'll get a longer and more elaborate whine about this tomorrow, when I will hopefully be up and running again, able to access all the things I need to access... which, at the moment, is not the case at all, unfortunately.

(All the data is still there. It's just an issue of accessing it. Which is partly not possible due to technical reasons, and partly due to my being over-optimistic on how quickly things would go, therefore deleting some things from the places where they would have been accessible to make space so things would go more quickly and smoothly. Hello irony.)

It's time - for the winter break!

I had a wonderful year 2019, with really interesting conferences, several exciting and wonderful workshops and courses, a lot of travel, and many other good things. There was a bit of stress, too - of course there was! and I hope to get that under control even better in 2020. Overall, though, I won't complain about how 2019 went.

Now it's time to slowly wrap up the year (maybe in a towel or tea towel, because sustainability...) and get into holiday mood. I will be closing the shop over the holidays and take a blog break as well; both will be back in normal mode (together, hopefully, with my own self) on January 8.

So with this, I wish you



or, if you celebrate something else, Happy Holidays! and a good start into the year 2020.

2020. That is a weird number, somehow, and I'm looking forward to see what that year will bring.

Have good times with people you love, and I'll see you on the flip side!

Just in case, now that the time of manger scenes is approaching, you'd like to take a look at some impressive bovines, you might want to click your way over to the Auerrind-Projekt. It's a try to backbreed to the wild Auerochs which went the way of the Dodo in the 17th century.

Though what is lost stays lost, trying to re-breed to a wild form is a way of trying to get more diversity in species - something which is always a good thing. The Auerrind-Projekt is also part of the larger project "Rewilding Europe", which is aiming to conserve and promote animal wildlife across Europe - and their site is also worth checking out, not only for the spectacular pictures of wild animals.

One of my upcoming projects is an introductory talk about fabrics used in the Middle Ages, especially for garments. It's an interesting topic, but also a rather large one, and one with a few problematic bits - such as different fabric types only surviving in rather different circumstances, without too much overlap.

I'm also still thinking about what needs to be included in the overview, and what would be especially interesting for Living History purposes. Obviously, there will be a little bit of the general basic stuff, as a refresher for those familiar with basic weaves and as a bringing-up-to-speed bit for those who are not. There's also the thing with wool not being alike, because much depends on what type of wool it is and how it's spun, or silk not being like any other silk, depending on whether it's spun silk or reeled silk, and whether reeled silk has been completely de-gummed or not, so these things will definitely get included.

Another thing I'm planning to cover is complex weaves, because these were part of medieval garment splendour, and even though they are hard to impossible to get these days, it is still important to know about them. So one of my upcoming tasks is to wind my brain around the internal construction of samite and lampas again, and find a good way of explaining these to non-weavers.

Apart from these, I'm still pondering what needs to be included, and what could be especially helpful or interesting for Living History purposes. Is there anything you are wondering about? Or would like to know more about? Let me know (and I'll try to give an answer here on the blog as well as include it in my intro...)!

I'm all excited about a few new things that have come into the shop - the weaving knives have been replenished, and now there's maple wood ones in addition to the woods I had before, which look absolutely beautiful:



There's also new linen two-ply yarn, in a wonderful light goldbeige colour,



and there's the silk developed for the Texel stocking project (which I've blogged about before - you can read more about it here).



You will notice I placed a scale with the cone - because I was surprised at how small they were when I took them out of the packaging. There's about 1200 m of yarn on that cone, enough for one stocking.

It's always so nice, and always a bit exciting, to put new things into the shop. Will everyone else like these things as much as I do? There's only one way to find out about that...

Let me know what you think - or if you have any questions!

 

Here's a few links for you, in hopes you'll find something enjoyable!

The new Knitty is out - Winter 2019 edition, with several patterns for sweaters and cardigans plus, of course, the seasonal hats and mittens.

There's a half-hour video online, in German, about cargo bikes in Nuremburg.

John Scalzi is, as every year, doing the Gift Guide Thing on his blog - Day Five is charities, but you can also find four other threads with books and craft-related gift ideas.

ancienttools.net is a blog about experimental archaeology, mostly concerning metalworking - but there's quite a bit of textile stuff inbetween.