While I did write about learning how to do stranded knitting, I've never posted pictures - so here, finally, proof that it happened:



The pattern is "Cat-oween", and it's mostly stranded knitting with two colours in a row. There's some purl action, and in the crown part, you have to juggle three colours in a few rounds.



That was... awkward, but I did manage.

The pattern was nice to work, the yarn was pleasant (it's smooth and not very elastic, but feels really nice against the skin), and I had a blast knitting this. Bonus: The recipient really liked it, too, and it did fit. Yay!



I even managed to finish it before Halloween... and now I'm tempted to make another one of these with the leftover yarn (which might be juuuust enough for one more). Eventually.

It's the time of year when things start to finally slow down a bit - which is a very nice thing after the rather hectic time that October and November somehow always turn out to be.

So I'll be setting this week aside for maintenance work. Which includes looking through my stock, making decisions about new orders and re-orders, re-packaging and re-shelving things, trying to find new and better ways for troublesome spots or not-so-perfect temporary solutions, getting some paperwork dealt with, things like this. There is already some progress from when I started on Friday, and I've spent most of today taking stock and re-organising things. It feels nice in some way to be able to finally take the time to do this, though I do have to tell myself now and then that yes, this is work and yes, this is necessary as well as doing other, more obvious stuff.

Next on the list: finishing to sort through the "to-be-sorted" stack of papers that has accumulated on my desk. I've also started on this already, with some success (though there is still a good stack left to be taken care of in the next days). The cat, of course, is helping - she is always happy to inspect empty boxes, or to lie on a chair and supervise my work. (Ah, where would I be without my furry overseer.)

Do you have a time of year for taking stock and sorting? Does it also happen to be towards the end of the year, or do you find yourself doing this in spring, or at some other point in time? Or are you so organised that you don't need to do this, but have things taken care of bit by bit as they come up?

You've probably been getting just as many mails and special offers about Black Friday as I do. Lots and lots of offers... for discounts.

Sometimes, these discounts are so high that I wonder how this can be possible. Either it means that the vendor is having a huge margin with the normal pricing, so there's still some profit left after the discount, or it means there's no profit anymore and it's more or less an advertisement stint, with the intention of getting the customers to buy other things as well (possibly believing that the prices have to be just as good in every case, which they cannot be, or else the shop won't survive).

Black Friday has become more and more of a thing in Germany in the past years, and I'm not really in love with the thing. At all. I can totally understand giving discounts on goods that have been sitting in your stock for ages, taking up space - you'd want to clear those out as a merchant. (As a customer, I totally enjoy those, by the way. If something delights me that happens to be from last season... well, I couldn't care less that it's not the current season's colour, or whatnot!)

I also get giving discounts for large amounts of the same thing (and yes, if you are planning to order a heckton of something from my shop, you can always send me a message first and ask about the price, and I'll see what I can do).

When it comes to random temporary deep discounts, though... I don't get it. When I calculate my prices, I try to go for a profit margin that makes sense for running my business, but is still fair to my customers. Sometimes, because the raw materials are expensive, or because there's a lot of costs involved in the making of the product, the things I offer do end up with a relatively high price tag - I can't help that, and it usually means that I can only have small amounts of these things made, and that there's a certain risk of me sitting on them for a long time. (Which means storage space, and capital tied up - also something that has to be considered when setting a price.) That said, my pricing policy does not leave a lot of room for price reductions. So that's one reason why I won't do something like "half off everything for Black Friday!".

As a consumer, I'm also somehow miffed when I buy something, then find out a little bit later that said thing is now offered for X percent off. Yes, I know that's just bad luck, and since the price I paid has obviously not killed me, I could just ignore it. However, it still leaves some kind of bad feeling for me - and it will mean that the next time I need to buy the thing again, and it's not urgent, I might wait until it's discounted again, or I might look for it somewhere else, now knowing that it could be available for a lower price. Maybe I'm the only one weird in that way... but I wouldn't want to cause this feeling in my own customers.

I'm also not really in love with the idea of trying to get people into a buying frenzy on a specific day, or weekend. Most of us in the western world - myself included - buy more things than we really need anyways. We're not living in a world of limitless supply, though, and getting new things all the time is not going to be sustainable forever. So having a day hyped up to make people buy, buy, buy... it doesn't seem like a really good thing to me.

What do you think? Is Black Friday a thing where you are? If so, do you enjoy it? Are you happy with the deep discounts for no apparent reason? Or would you prefer to have lower, stable prices all the time?

I've recently mentioned the Open Access books available at OApen.org - and I've found now that the books available include Karina Grömer's book about prehistoric textiles, both in the German and the English version. You can find them here - enjoy!

In case you're looking for something to let your artistic self out to play, the Rijksmuseum is inviting everyone to participate in the Rijksstudio Design Award. This competition is open until February 27, and you can submit your piece, inspired by the collection of the museum.

There will be a Public vote winner and a Design Award winner, as well as a young Talent (aged 21 and under). You can read more about the award, and find the info for your submission, on their webpage.

Sometimes, things turn out to be more difficult than anyone would have guessed. One of these things, as I've learned, is... getting a room.

Not a room at a hotel, or youth hostel, or such things; I'm perfectly capable of that, and it is generally not a problem at all (unless you wait until the last minute and then try to get something cheap in a town where there's a fair going on...). I was looking for a room to give workshops. To be even more precise, to give a tablet weaving workshop.

A while ago, when I was preparing for the weaving weekend in Belgium, I had figured out a good plan on how to place tables, chairs, and weaving warps so that the room available could fit the participants we'd planned for. I have since tweaked this a tiny bit, and I can comfortably fit twelve weavers using six tables. (And clamps, of course. I think there's no workshop where I don't turn up with my clamps.)

[caption id="attachment_4902" align="alignnone" width="979"] Table, clamp, band. I love this setup - it's quick, easy, versatile, and allows to have a wide choice on how to sit at the band.


For this constellation, I need a room size of no less than 6 by 9 metres, though - and it turned out that such a room for renting is very, very hard to find. Lots of people that I have talked to have expressed their wonder at this, and frankly, I would have thought it should be no problem either - before I started searching in earnest. Either there is such a room, but it is booked already, or the owners (especially churches) need it for themselves on Sunday, or it is not rented out over weekends, or it is completely unaffordable for me. I've managed to rent one room once, for my last workshop, but alas - this place is one of the "usually booked already" places.

Which means that, after searching for more than a month now, I was quite frustrated. So much that yesterday evening, I looked at our living room again... with a sharp eye, and a measuring tape, and the help of the Most Patient Husband of Them All (who really, absolutely, and utterly deserves this title - as my giving a full weekend workshop at home also means that our main living space is taken up).

There was then some drawing of available space, and some cutting of folding table mockups, and more measuring and thinking - and finally we came up with a method to fit up to eight weavers. Which is very good - and which means that I can finally, finally set the date for my next tablet weaving course, which will be a beginner's workshop. (It will be on March 7 and 8, by the way... description for the shop and booking possibility will come up tomorrow at the latest.)

There's a number of conferences I've gotten information on, so I will spread the word - here they are:

I will be presenting things at NESAT in Oulu, Finland - and I'm all excited about it! The conference will take place May 17-22. NESAT is only every three years, and it's like some kind of family reunion in a way, as the textile archaeology field is rather small, and after a while, you know most people in it. So I'm already looking forward to meeting friends and colleagues from all over Europe again, and to seeing a bit more of Finland and of Stockholm on the way there and back. I'm also already thinking hard about the best way of doing my tablet weaving demonstration...

Further ahead into the future:

There will be a Nordic Tabletweaving Conference at 11-13 September at Länsmuseet Gävleborg, Gävle, in Sweden. There will be courses held in Nordic languages and in English; you can learn more about the event and find the preliminary sign up here.

The EXAR conference 2020 will take place in the Archäologisches Landesmusuem Brandenburg (Paulikloster) in Brandenburg an der Havel, in Germany. Date for the conference is October 1-4, 2020, the CfP is coming next spring.