I'm home again from my TV thingie - and as expected, it was great fun! Everybody was really nice, and it did go very well. We did the three little scenes that were planned over and over again to get shots from all directions, so now I can almost repeat the dialogue in my sleep... maybe I'll mumble it tonight.

Apart from the "yay TV!" thing, I vastly enjoyed the afternoon for another reason as well: I'm always fascinated by stuff happening behind the scenes. For a few minutes of screen time*, there's a lot of logistics and work happening beforehand (such as scenes being done several times). There's lights and audio stuff involved (fancy microphones!), there's huge cameras and gear and many other things, of course, though none of that can be seen later on. It's a little like textile work, really - a lot of time, effort, and know-how goes into the finished product, though it all stays hidden to most people.

But the best of all the TV work, at least for me, are the people. All the TV folks I've yet had the pleasure to work with were not only totally nice, but also really happy with their job. They were also really, really good at said job, and very professional and efficient... which made it an utter joy to work with them. Today's audio technician, when I chatted with him, told me that it feels more like working among family than just colleagues - which is very much of how it feels to work in Living History. (I'm also really happy I didn't kill him by accidentally hitting the microphone, hidden inside my dress, with something making lots of noise!)

The scene will be part of the children's quiz show 1,2 oder 3 (which has been running since forever - I used to watch it when I was small), and it's planned for being aired on May 27, ZDF, at 8:10 in the morning. So if you can receive that programme and want to have a look at my part - you can!

 
 
*To give you an idea: the whole thing today took a bit more than three and a half hours, including setup time. (Fortunately, my Great Wheel wasn't as fiddly to get to run smoothly as it has already been - setup wasn't perfect, but it did spin well enough for the purpose. (I've also done much, much better yarn on it; it really makes a difference whether you can get into the flow or not.)) Screen time resulting from this work will be... drumroll... two minutes.

Really, really full. As in "no more yarn shall wind onto it" full:


And it took a fraction of the time to fill a bobbin with the thicker yarn (of course). Soon I'll find out how many metres of yarn we are looking at here - and then I will have a rough estimate of how much more of that rope I need to spin for the fabric sample!

The year starts off excitingly... the first of the handspun fabrics has arrived here today and now waits to be fulled a bit for getting finished (exciting!). There's more spinning going on, and the first bobbin for the two-ply fabric now is full, with the second one started, so tomorrow might already see the first bit of plying taking place (also exciting!).

If not tomorrow, then Friday - because Thursday will be eaten up by... TV stuff. I'll be on television some time in the future! Only for a very short bit, but if it's like the last time I've done TV stuff, filming will be a heap of fun. Also, you guessed it, very exciting - especially since the Great Wheel will be part of the thing.

So. More hot motivational drinks for me right now, more spinning, and making lists plus planning and preparing for Thursday - there are some rolags that want to be rolled!

Happy New Year to all of you - may it bring joy and wonderful adventures and many successful, happy projects!

I'm back home from a wonderful time off. There was time spent with family, and time spent with friends; there was roast goose and cookies and cake, gingerbread and chocolate; coffee and tea were consumed in no little quantity, and we had walks in the snow and the now-traditional mousse au chocolat to toast the new year at midnight on the 31st.

Now it's back to work - the usual gazillion of emails to sort out, and of course the spinning. The first batch of yarns for the first piece of fabric was done just before the holidays, and now I will spin up about 2 km of really thick yarn from Coburg Fox wool for the reproduction of a packaging fabric.

The workplace is already all set up, and I've started off:


The thread for this fabric is a two-ply (it is one of the quite rare medieval fabrics where plied yarn was used for weaving), and it's about 3-5 mm thick - so I'm spinning singles that feel really, really chunky to me. This is quite a challenge, as I'm very used to spinning fine and very fine yarns, but not yarns this size (or, as I usually call them, ropes).

Because the thread is so thick, I have mounted an "aim for this"-sample card on the left side of the spinner. On the plus side for spinning bulky yarns: Checking the twist angle does not require a magnifying glass for this thread. Also, the spool fills up much, much faster with this kind of yarn!

It's almost that time of the year... when most of us get a few days off work to hang out with friends and family. When the nights are longest, and the days shortest, and we know it will get lighter again, and warmer, in time.

The time of the year when all kinds of delicious things flood our tables, to be shared with loved ones and enjoyed together. The time of year to bribe small, peacefully resting, unsuspecting cats into letting you put plush toy hats on their heads and take silly photos.


Because that is obviously really necessary at this time of year, right?

Whether you are celebrating Christmas, Yule, the Winter Solstice, Hanukkah, something else or nothing at all, I hope you will have a few nice days, filled with whatever activities (or non-activities) that make you happy, and spent with people whose company you enjoy, or in glorious solitude if you need a breather and prefer to be on your own for a while.

I hope you had a good year 2016 - mine certainly was good, and full of exciting things, plus quite a bit of change. Let's see what the rest of this year will bring, and the next one.

I'll be back on the blog on January 9, sharing tales of my shenanigans again, and I hope you'll be back to read them. Until then - have a glorious time, thank you for stopping by and sharing my 2016, and I'll see you on the flipside!

You've seen enough pictures of bobbins now - time to see more spinning pictures, but with actual spinning in them:

[caption id="attachment_2827" align="alignnone" width="451"] Spinning happily along - now working on the weft thread for one of the fabrics.


It is coming along nicely, the spinning work. Not every day is like every other one, but today felt like a really good one - which is nice, as I want to have a good batch done and ready to go into the post by the end of this week.

[caption id="attachment_2824" align="alignnone" width="640"] Drafting from the Romney top. You can see the difference between the fluffed-up loosened (pre-drafted) fibres beneath my hands and the original top hanging down beside my leg.


There is, of course, also the periodical checking of thread thickness and spinning angle:

[caption id="attachment_2826" align="alignnone" width="640"] First the thickness... which should be around 0.5 mm for this one...


[caption id="attachment_2825" align="alignnone" width="640"] ...and then the angle with help of my thread counter.


For today, though, I'm done spinning. More thread will be made tomorrow!

Just before the year runs out, there are a few new things in the shop - two new kinds of combed top and two versions of a really helpful little tool.

Have I made you curious?

One of the new wools is Gotland wool, consisting of light and dark fibres of similar diameter, which results in a grey overall appearance - but the yarn will, on closer look, show the dark and light fibres. It makes for a fascinating spinning, and a similarly fascinating yarn!

[caption id="attachment_2821" align="alignnone" width="640"] Black and white... makes grey. A really beautiful one in this case.


The other wool is similarly inhomogenous - but it also has different fibre diameters. It's light almost-white to dark brown in the individual fibres, resulting in a light to medium brown wool overall:

[caption id="attachment_2820" align="alignnone" width="640"] Have some variety. In your fibre diameter and in the colour!


I'm even happier, though, about finally having a special kind of helpful tool in the shop: Thread Counters. One a little pricier, but with a higher-quality lens and made from sturdy metal:

[caption id="attachment_2819" align="alignnone" width="640"] Metal Thread Counter


and the other, as the even more affordable option, made from high-quality plastic with a very good lightweight plastic lens:

[caption id="attachment_2818" align="alignnone" width="640"] Plastic Thread Counter


Both kinds are made by Eschenbach Optik (that have their company in the next large town over, which delights me no end, being a believer in regional trade and such) and they are made in Germany. Both have a tenfold magnification, which is the upper end of what thread counters usually do. I've used a thread counter for ages now (it's what I use for checking spinning angle, for instance), and having a good one really is incredibly helpful.

You can get more information about all these things in the shop - click the links in the text to get directly to the individual items, or this one here to get to the shop front, where they should all be waiting for you with their new friends...