I spent the day yesterday looking at the embroidered linen altar cloths from the Altenberger Monastery, and they were really, really breathtaking. It took me a good long while to puzzle out how some of the intricate braided stitches were made, and after that I spent another good long while to look at all the stitch patterns to find that there are not so very many - but they are cunningly worked and varied in a way to look like many more different stitches.

As usual for a special exhibition, it was not permitted to take photographs, so you can picture me standing in front of the displays, periodically putting my nose close to the glass, squinting at details, then straightening back up and sketching manically. These altar cloths are large, and they are just filled with embroidery - thousands and thousands of stitches, an incredible amount of work.

If you can go there and have a look, it is really worth it - the exhibition is running until September 25, so there's still time to pay a visit to Frankfurt.

Speaking of textiles, here are a few links:

Biblical motifs and symbolism in medieval textiles.

By now, you've probably heard of it already, but I will post the link to the world's oldest needle anyways.

And finally, Cathy has an interesting blog article about tutorials for making historical clothing.

 

Sometimes you read something on the 'net, and then you follow a link, and then you read something else and there's another link and suddenly you go "oh. Oh. Oh wow" because you have just discovered something weird and/or awesome.

That happened to me when I stumbled across the Pittsburgh Cookie Table. In case you are just as unknowing as I was before, there's a tradition in Pittsburgh (and a few other spots, but mainly there) where you have a table with lots of cookies for special occasions, such as weddings. Wikipedia knows about this, of course - but if you really want to be smacked in the eyes with lots and lots of cookies, a picture search will do nicely.

If you are looking for recipes now, there are a few (together with more pictures) linked to on this page. A few definitely sound intriguing - though I think I'll stay mostly with my old favourites for the Christmas baking...

I have finally finished knitting the Renaissance Shawl, and it is now blocked on our livingroom carpet and slowly drying. (The cat is somewhere outside, where she spends the days in this summery weather, so there's very little danger of cat attacks until the evening.)

[caption id="attachment_2578" align="alignnone" width="640"] Last week saw the last two rows being knitted...


I finished it off yesterday evening. As is to be expected, it didn't look super-spectacular after being taken off the needles:


... but that improves dramatically with a bit of water, a bit of time and a lot of pins:


I remembered from last time that I knit this that blocking was the biggest challenge for me (followed closely by the bind-off, but that is due to my non-existent practice in crocheting). This time, I started in the middle and basically stretched out the "eyes" (the big holes) and the grid pattern below so they looked more or less round and balanced, and the rest sort of followed suit. I went from the bottom middle to the right and left, alternating, until I reached the last third or so.

Since I added an extra repeat of the leaf pattern in the middle section, the wings did not end up touching each other at the tips, but overlap for a good bit, so I pinned the first one out completely, then pinned the second one on top of it.


Pins for the inner rim were only necessary in the last third or so, where the wing ends are; the rest needed no pins for extra stretch.

And now I shall wait for it to dry - it shouldn't take too long with this warm weather. After that, it's wait and see when it will be cool enough for me to need this shawl... but autumn is coming, and what is more fitting to wear in autumn than a shawl knit from pumpkin-coloured wool?

After yesterday's damson cake, here's more baked goods links for your delectation. Firstly, spectacular archaeology cakes as "Edible Archaeology" at Current Archaeology. Whenever I see cakes like these - basically edible works of art - I get a little sad because mine never look really nice. Which is probably due to the fact that I concentrate on getting them done in a yummy way and don't spend more time decorating and neatening than mixing and baking, and would choose taste over looks any time when picking coverings. But still. Beautiful cakes. I'm slightly jealous.

If you need something chocolaty now, here's a recipe for a giant chocolate cake (and the same recipe on Ruth Reichl's site, explained slightly differently) - Gillian has recently tested the recipe and says it's rich and a really nice cake. She also says they cut way down on the sugar, though. The recipe reminds me of the cake recipes from the 1970s in Germany - if I make one of them today, I cut the sugar by at least half. Sweet years, these were!

It's damson plum season here, and that means... cake time. Plum cake time! "Zwetschgenkuchen", as it is called here, is one of my favourite cakes ever, and there has to be some of it every single year when the damsons are ripe.

This year, I did some experimenting with the fruits on a shortcrust base, and accidentally stumbled across my new totally favourite shortcrust recipe. The secret's not in the sauce, but in the sugar:

450 g flour (I use spelt flour)
100 g mascobado cane sugar (I use the GEPA sugar)
1 large egg
250 g butter
pinch of salt

That's it - worked like the usual shortcrust pastry dough: mix flour and sugar, crumble in the butter so you have a homogenous mixture of small powder-coated butter bits, then knead in the egg until you have a smooth dough. Let it rest in a cool place for at least one hour.
Bake at about 175° C in a fan oven.

Shortcrust dough is lovely anyways, but the mascobado sugar adds a kind of rich caramelly taste that is just... wonderful. Normal brown sugar will alter the taste of baked goods, and mascobado does the same but to a slightly different taste, which I prefer a lot to the "normal" sugar. (I'm using this stuff for almost all my sweetening needs these days. Totally in love with it.)

Half of this amount of dough will be enough for one 26 cm round cake or 12 thin muffin-sized shells; the whole amount is enough for one baking sheet. Cover with halved damsons (at least 750 g for the round cake; you can fit much, much more if you set them almost vertical). If you put a little dry semolina on the dough before putting on the fruit, it will soak up juices and prevent the crust from getting too soggy too quickly. Bake for about 30-35 minutes... and enjoy.

[caption id="attachment_2586" align="alignnone" width="640"] A muffin-sized shell filled with damsons. There's my name written on it. (As in: I will definitely eat it this afternoon...)

Here's a truth about me that you probably already know: I really like coffee. (I also really like tea, cats, cakes, and chocolate, though I do not consume cats. As opposed to the other things.) I like the varieties best that have little acidity. I drink it with milk, and like it strong enough to get a good coffee taste with a bit of bitterness, but not too strong - the "French" or "Norwegian" coffee at the Textile Forum is usually too much for me, and I water it down. (A lot.)

I also like coffee cups. There are so many funny, fancy mugs in our household that even though we do have "proper" coffee cups that match the rest of our tableware, we usually grab one of the non-matching mugs. Well, more or less non-matching, as there are a few sets - one with cartoon animals doing seasonal stuff, with the mugs aptly labeled "spring", "summer", "autumn", and "winter", and one set of two cups where one is "pro!" and the other "contra!"

And from that rich assortment of cups, there are a very few that sort of belong only to the most patient husband of them all (as in only he is using them and we also don't give them to guests to use), and a few (admittedly a few more) that are mine and mine alone. Because they are my favourites. (One of these, curiously, used to be a favourite of his, until I sort of usurped it, and it has been ages since he last drank out of it.) Another favourite is a raku-ware cup that a friend gave to me on my last birthday, hitting several sweet spots at once - my love for raku and handmade things, my love for nice and rather large cups, and my colour preferences. Yet another one is a souvenir cup I brought home from a visit to a conference in Poland, years ago.

All these have one thing in common - they are a bit or a significant bit larger than the usual coffee mug (which in turn is much larger than a normal coffee cup). There's just one of my fave mugs that is normal mug-sized... but it's still the coolest coffee cup ever:

[caption id="attachment_2576" align="alignleft" width="228"] That's tea stains in the cup. I had a cuppa tea before I had coffee. Sue me.



I bought this a few years ago at the game fair in Essen, in the comics area. It's the ultimate cup for a coffee-loving archaeologist, and in case you are one or know one or just need that cup too anyways, here's the webshop where you can get it. (The shop is in German, but it should be straightforward enough.) There are a few more nice cups in that shop, too, and not all of them have a strictly German pun such as this one. (Ziehen, in German, both means "to draw" if you are talking about a gun, and "to steep" if you are talking about tea.) Enjoy. Don't blame me if you end up with another mug or two. (These things are herd animals anyway. Just like spinning tools. Or bicycles. Right?)

I'm not entering a title, though. I'm not. Because today is somehow... weird. I did manage to get a stack of stuff done, most of it in preparation for the next fairs, but I'm still feeling way behind, and would have liked to be much, much faster. Story of my life.

Parts of that stack of stuff done today include:

Updating and printing my spinning instructions. (While the downloadable version is available for free through my shop, you get the printed-out instructions in the spinning kit, so I need to print some more from time to time).

Getting together with Gillian for a chat - we're planning a crossover blog interview in celebration of the Beast's release as paperback, and it was my turn to get interviewed. I'll have the pleasure of pestering Gillian with questions next week, and you will see the results here on the blog.

Taking photos of the oil lights in action. I'm still totally in love with these things - they have been produced for ages (the three-bladed swimmer has been made, unchanged, since 1808) and they are just so incredibly nice to use, both for atmospheric lighting and for keeping your tea hot. However, the concept of using these swimmers is rather forgotten today, so people often stand in front of the swimmers at my table, looking puzzled. So I obviously need some explanatory thing to sit around on my stall table at a fair - and this, also obviously, needs photographs.

[caption id="attachment_2574" align="alignleft" width="265"] Atmospheric lighting. With a wineglass, a bit of water and some oil... and the swimmer, of course.


[caption id="attachment_2580" align="alignright" width="265"] Keeping tea hot. Because life is better with tea, and tea is better when hot. Obviously, right?


Actually that was the main bits I did today, as these things all tend to eat up more time than you'd guess at first. (Photos, in particular. Never underestimate the amount of time needed to take good photos - especially if they involve tricky lighting conditions. Or gold embroidery.) The rest was eaten up by the usual day-to-day things such as sorting out emails and working on the current paper/presentation projects. And having coffee. Plus tea. Tea was obligatory since I had to take teapot warmer pictures!