This was a wild ride while I was off the blog - first the conference in France, where I had a wonderful time (and probably ate way too much patisserie).  Then a little time off to relax and think of things completely different, as I met up with friends to go to the game fair in Essen. (In case you are new here - yes, I like to play boardgames, and have been going to Essen, which is the world's biggest boardgame fair, for many years now, and it's a blast every time.) 

After coming back from Essen, I had the pleasure of a video meeting for plans for the future, of filming and editing a short video on how to wear medieval hoods, and then it was already time to finish packing the car for the European Textile Forum.

This year, it was wonderfully uncomplicated to fit everything in, even though the loading started with an easy 40+ kg of wood (for the tablet weaving stands). In spite of that, though, there was not much else needed but a bit of yarn, some tablets, some bits and pieces to help with the warping and the weaving, and the usual kitchen odds and ends that I lug along (most important of which is my late gran's big coffee maker). Usually, the car is packed full and there were years when I had to take photographs during the loading so I could be sure that everything would fit back in on the way back, too. This year, it was half-empty in comparison, which felt a little weird but also, well, easy and relaxing.

The Forum itself was, as usual, wonderful if a little exhausting. I've grown old and sensible though and there was no night when I went to bed insanely late, which also means that my coffee consumption stayed within normal human limits, as did my extra tiredness. We looked at different tablet weaving techniques, worked with different materials, and one of the focus points was, I'm tempted to say "of course", brocading. 

A lot of the historical posh and thus preserved bands use brocading as the embellishment technique of choice, and I'm happy to say that I have come some more to terms with this technique. It's still a little fiddly, and a little boring compared to freestyle twill shenanigans if you ask me, but I have gotten much better at seeing the appeal. 

After the Forum... well. I get a week off after the Forum, by tradition. There was a little bit of things I had to sneak in, including some abstract writing for a conference CfP which had the deadline looming, but I did mostly... not so much. The cat was happy to help me sleep in and snuggle a bit longer in the mornings, and I took care of some of the food leftovers by drying, freezing, or salting, and giving away some to the neighbours (cheese just isn't a big favourite in this household). 

And now I'm back and have a long list of stuff to do, as, well, as always. For you, I also have something else:

I've had the pleasure to narrate another story for Cast of Wonders - this time, it's a variation on the Beauty and the Beast theme. I really liked it - and you can either read the story, or listen to the narration, or both, on the Cast of Wonders website. I hope you enjoy it! 

After a little bit of a tech hiccup (that, if you ask me, should not have happened, but at least it got fixed relatively quickly) I'm very happy and relieved that the blog is back, with very little extra shenanigans for me to do. Phew.

I am still technically on blog hiatus, though, and will be until November 17 as planned. But since I'm in the blog checking for its okay-ness, you might as well hear from me.

I am deep in the preparation for the Forum, so there's stacks of stuff here and there, waiting to get sorted for packing. The wood is already in the car, as is the big coffee maker; the clamps are waiting to be loaded, the yarns are almost all stuffed into suitable boxes, and I have had the motivation needed for untangling (well, mostly) all of my unfinished tablet woven bands. There's also a stack of books that will travel with me.

So. Much anticipation. Lots of packing still to do. See you here later in November! 

I'm off again, gallivanting through the countryside - well, more or less. I am off to Clermond-Ferrand for a conference there. (My second time, by the way, travelling with an Interrail ticket! My youth is coming back!) 

After that, there's a scant two weeks before my Week of Madness, also known as the European Textile Forum, so those will be spent doing the last-minute preparations and so on. (The wood for the tablet weaving stands is in the house, and the first bits of sawing it to size have been done. To be continued!)

Tablets and threads for the Forum week seem to be mostly sorted out, catastrophies nonwithstanding, but of course there's plenty of stuff left to be done. Plus there's a few checkups at the doctor, such as the tooth health checkup, and a public holiday here in Germany as well.

So I will be a smart person and take some time off the blog, and I will leave you with this photo of me making a half-hitch (in which my right hand works and my left hand is completely unimpressed, but also very much not involved) and be off the blog until November 17, because I fully expect to spend the week after the Forum impersonating a slightly wilted stalk of broccoli that was forgotten in the bottom of the fridge and is now able to do no more than hang in there and blankly stare at the white fridge walls in the dark, broccoli-style.

See you then! 

Sometimes, sometimes there's something and I have no clue on what to do, and then... I start asking people. More often than not, surprising things come out of this, like new solutions I had never thought of, or help that is more helpful that I had hoped for, and - in the case that I have asked for help, which I have learned to do with little shame by now in most cases, and am working on the remaining bits of awkwardness - a happy side result is being even more connected to the people involved than before.

What I want to say with this, basically, is: You can always ask. If you end up with something that you are not quite happy with, you can always ask why this is like that, and if there's as possibility to make things better. If you do not know something, you can always ask to learn more (even if it feels like you should know more... because each of us has some holes in their knowledge, and trying to cover them up will probably, in the long run, be worse than just owning them and being able to fill them. If there is something that does not fit your needs, maybe the folks providing it just have no idea, and are actually happy to get your feedback. And if you need help... you can always ask for it. There's no guarantee that you will get help, because the folks you asked might not have the means to give you a hand, or the inclination, so the trick is to ask with hope but without expectation. And then, if you get help, you might not end up with the kind of help you expected but maybe something different. (There's another trick to being able to accept what you get, even if it's not exactly like you imagined it to be, or it's not how you would have done it. If it does the job, it's fine and merits a thank you and some warm appreciation. And that, too, is a thing that gets easier with practice, actually - just like the asking itself.)

So, you might go out, and take your deep breath and pull yourself together and manage to ask the question, and it might come to nothing. But in many cases, there's probably a happy surprise waiting for you if you ask about things, or for things. Sometimes you need to be persistent and ask a lot of people, for a long time. (I think it took me a dozen years or more to find someone to make medieval-style shears for me, and yes, that was very, very frustrating at times.) Sometimes it doesn't work out at all. Sometimes you get what you thought you were looking for, and realise it's not the bee's knees your mind hyped it up to be... but I would always recommend to keep talking to people, and to keep asking.

The other half of this, of course, is to be open when people ask you about something. If you can help, offer it. Even if it's just an answer, and email back, or making a contact to someone else who might be able to help better than you. That doesn't mean you will have to drop everything you are doing or change your life at the drop of a hat, or at any request - everyone should have boundaries, and so should you. But you will have space to do stuff even with a full schedule. It might be small, but it will still be something.

"Be kind" is one of the sign-offs on the Escape Artist podcasts (which you might know are dear to my heart). It's a good motto to live with, I think. 

So... yesterday was spent with some gardening help at my parents' place (where the bushes were in dire need of trimming), and then doing some wood shopping, more or less last-minute before the shops closed, because of course stuff took longer than it was supposed to take.

The wood shopping was, of course, intended to let me make the tablet-weaving frames. Some of the wood parts were rather long (2.5 metres), so I was quite happy that they did just fit into the car. Now there will be a bit of drilling, and a bit of screwing, and a little bit of glueing, and then I hope they will turn out like I planned. I'm not yet fully decided on whether to use our lovely Japanese handsaw or our friend's mechanical saw (which is loud and has a thicker blade ut is much, much faster than my arm), but putting the frames together is not a task for right now, so I can ponder it a little more yet. (Or swap upon realisation that I'd prefer to try the other thing.)

The shopping was quickly done, by the way, it took me a little more than half an hour altogether. But we had done research before and figured out which of the screws and which of the other metal bits and which of the wood bits, so I did know exactly what to get and where to go in the market to pick it up.

It's not exactly going to be a historically correct stand, as there will be modern fittings used, and it will not be as fancy as the originals on images often are, but the only thing I actually want from them is to hold up warps just like the originals did - and for that, not much more is needed than two stable upright posts.

... this blog software tries to drive me crazy - for instance when it remembers some date of a draft and refuses to change it when the stuff is published. No, I don't want you to list this as "published on August Backwhenever" when I actually do publish it on October Today! Argh.

These small annoyances aside, I'll be off today to get a vaccine shot and then to have the car tyres changed to winter tyres. Why is everything happening in autumn time? It's almost like it's the training school for pre-Xmas-stress! (Though thankfully that is not a big issue in my life.)

Anyway - since I will be doing some extra time-of-year-related things the next few days, blogging will probably be sporadic. I plan to, but it's not too realistic that I will get around to it (and there are other tasks that are actually both important and time-critical to do, so... expect me when you see me.) 

As you might know if you've done medieval-style tablet weaving before, there's a special kind of contraption usually seen when late medieval women are depicted: Some kind of stand with two uprights, one floor crossbar and usually a second crossbar, or some diagonal stabilisers. The warp is then tensioned between the two uprights, and off you go with your weaving work. 

Like here: 

Now, the plan is to make some more - but larger this time, and with bits of wood bought in a normal hardware store, and less glueing plus more screwing (hopefully not screwing up, though). That should hopefully make them even nicer to work with, and easier to take apart and put together again, with less wonkyness.

We shall see if that plan works out!