Collaboration can be a wonderful thing. Collaboration can add new insights, different perspectives, throw up new questions and give answers that one person alone could never have found. Successful collaboration means being able to do something you alone would not be able to do.

Collaboration, if it works well, means less work and less re-inventing of the wheel for everyone involved. More efficiency. Plus the exhilaration that comes with the feeling of, for once, not being alone. Of having someone who pulls the weight with you, that you can carry the load together.

When it goes badly, however, having agreed on a collaboration means nothing but headaches, and heartaches, and the exact opposite of efficiency. There's the added bit of irony that the more a project could profit from collaboration, because each person in the team has expertise and knowledge and a specialty field that has little overlap with the others', the worse it will go and the more heartache it will cause if somebody drops out or does not deliver.

I have had both - the successful collaboration (thanks, colleagues!) and being left alone by drop-outs. It's unfortunate, and bad, and sad, when a collaboration dies. Bad enough when your colleagues tell you straight out that they have to stop working on the project, for a while or forever, because something came up that needs all their time and energy to handle.
It is much worse, though, if you do not get told this. If all of a sudden, communication just... stops, and you feel like you are talking to a wall. With no echo, even. And that is what I hate most about the drop-out thing - the silence. Silence regarding all your mails, all your attempts to get some communication back. You sit there and wonder whether something has happened - an email gone astray, an address going offline, something dire in the life of the other person - or if you really are just ignored, consistently and callously. Because obviously you don't even deserve a short mail saying "I got your mail, things are bad here, please go on without me, sorry."

I know, much too well, that sometimes one bites off more than one can chew. And I believe that either you manage, somehow, to deliver after all - maybe a bit later, maybe a little less elaborate and less brilliant work than your best - or you should own up to not being able to do it. Hell, there's nothing wrong with being honest and saying "sorry, I can't do this now after all". It is unfortunate, and sad, but it is at least some communication and a clear message, and either the project of the collaboration will then die a quiet little death or those remaining in the active team will know that they have to either leave that part of the field untilled or do the work themselves. Letting the others hang, not knowing what goes on? That's unfair.

Having been let hanging rather recently by more than one person, in more than one project, I am not sure when I will do another collaboration. It might be a good while - I am pretty sure, though, that I will not resist the lure forever. For the next time I get into it, though, I will try to remember the following before getting started:

- Make sure you have contact data to reach everyone in your team. Full contact data, as redundant as possible - not just a single email address. Get the full address, at least one alternative email addy if possible, and all phone numbers. You might never need them, and that's fine, but if someone goes MIA - you'll be glad you have them.

- Be clear on communication policies. Also make it clear that whenever in a project that there are problems it will be best for everyone to address these honestly and straightforward - up to and including dropping out or going dormant in the project due to issues of whatever kind.

- Get clear statements on who is in and who is not, and set clear deadlines within the project so everyone will (hopefully) deliver in time.

- Get sorted out, clearly, on who is to do which task, and in what time-frame. Get this communicated to everybody.

- Did I mention getting full contact data? Get full contact data of everybody while they still speak with you. Really.

Unfortunately and as I have learned, even being clear on deadlines and on communication and handing out specific tasks to others is no guarantee at all that things will, indeed, work out. So sadly, but most importantly: Have a Plan B ready for when all this fails, and you are left alone with no communication, no help, and a half-written paper that you don't have the skills, knowledge, or even literature to finish up on your own.

In German, the English term "team" has become pretty much a standard part of our language, and we use it a lot (it's shorter than "Arbeitsgruppe" or something with a similar meaning in German, you see?).
In German, there is also an only half-joking explanation of TEAM as an acronym, standing for "Toll, ein andrer macht's" (Great, someone else will do it). Yes. Well. I think I don't need to say more.

Just for your information, it's the middle of Winter here, or more like Winter almost at its end. Huh, you say, hasn't she been going on about spring and warmth and stuff for weeks? That's true. And I'm not speaking of the seasonal white-stuff-is-lying-around-outside winter... I'm speaking of the Living History Folks' special "Winter".

You know the oldest and most common joke of LH people, right? "Ah, I'll fix that in the winter". Said "winter" often turns out to be the one week before the first event of the next season - which means someone saying "I will do that in the winter" sometimes gets to hear "And what else have you planned for that week?"

So, season's start is on Thursday, and I will be there. Which means I have less than three days to finish sorting my clothes, restocking my basket of goods, figuring out what to pack, and (most important) take care of all the deadlined and urgent things that are not yet taken care of.

One of these, by the way, is my (still not successful) attempt to source a thread in tabby, 10 threads per cm, white and undyed or naturally grey, not fulled, in garment weight. It would be perfect (I know I am being unreasonable with that) if it were made from high-twist single yarns that are not Merino wool... but I will settle for a cloth that is not perfect. It seems to be almost impossibly difficult to find such a cloth. (If you know of a source, please let me know.)

Well. Off to work, then... Winter's almost over, after all.

(This post should have gone online yesterday, but somehow got stuck as a draft. I'm sorry.)

Just in case you are living in a place where there are ticks, or are planning to visiting one: tick season, at least in Germany, has started early this year, due to the very mild winter, and we've had several days now when we picked off three or even four ticks from our cat. (They were still wandering through her fur, looking for a good spot - our luck.)

Ticks and moths are the two pests that really get me riled, and itching to kill. them. all. Moths because they eat wool and silk (yes, thank you Captain Obvious, I'm sure no one of the blog readers here would ever have guessed), and ticks because they can transmit both an meningoencephalitis and Lyme disease, and I just find them freaky.

Here's the thing about ticks that the wikipedia article does not tell you: They are hardy. Really hardy. They will survive immersion in water (even water that has a drop of dishwashing detergent added) almost indefinitely. If you flush them down your toilet? They don't care. They might come back out of the drain, even. I know of three sure ways to kill a tick, and that is pouring boiling water over them, burning them, or smashing them to a pulp. In our household, the preferred method is an old pair of tweezers (the good ones don't take kindly to being flambé-d) and a lighter. Once that thing has shriveled to a black thing with glowing legs, it won't drink any more blood. (Sometimes they pop. Be wary of exploding tick in case you burn one that has already engorged itself.)

Another thing the Wiki article does not mention directly, unless you follow links: You cannot prevent getting Lyme's if an infected tick bites you; there's no vaccine against it. It is a weird sickness that may or may not cure itself spontaneously or linger on for ages, and it can have all kinds of weird effects. The best way to be safe against it is to try and prevent getting tick-bitten; if you have one, remove it safely as soon as possible (safe removal is pulling it out; a twisting motion might or might not help), put some disinfectant on the spot, keep in mind you had a tick and survey the bitten bit for infection - characteristic symptom is a red spot that grows outward, developing into a red ring. There's no guarantee that you get that ring if you got infected, though. (Yes, Lyme's is weird in a tricky kind of way. Didn't I mention it?) So if you develop symptoms from out of nowhere... you might want to ask your physician to test for Lyme's.

That said, Lyme's can be cured - antibiotics usually do the trick, the better the earlier you catch it. The meningoencephalitis is incurable once it has set on, so go get your vaccination shot if you are going to be in an area where you can get a tick. That's about all of Europe, folks. Don't risk your brains.

I have actually and for a change managed to leave the library with less books than I came there with - which is very, very good as it marks something like progress.

There's still plenty of work left to do, though, both sewing work (I have to finish the last piece for the museum project) and writing work. Writing-wise, apart from the book project which is currently cooking on low flame as we're waiting to hear back from a publishing house, there are several papers in line: one to be finished once I get it back from the collaborating author; one to be translated and tweaked to finish; and one to be written. Number one, by the way, is for the next volume of the Textile Forum proceedings. Yay!

And then there's the usual stuff to be handled: Preparation for the summer season (checking the inventory, packing up, checking and last-minute-repairing of things, and so on). Trying to get the study back into something that, with bad lighting and half-closed eyes and possibly some helpful intoxication, can be regarded as a semblance of order. Oh, and tax time is coming up too. Plus there's some knitting stuff going on (there was a lag caused by the need for some more test-knitting, but I think I am about past the maths-and-thinking stage now, too).

So no chance for boredom, as you see... plus tomorrow is the Day of Birthdays! (April 25 seems to be a good day for having a birthday. I know three people already who celebrate on that day...)

The conference for Dyes in History and Archaeology will be taking place in Glasgow, Scotland, on October 30 and 31 2014. It's number 33 in the series, and the call for papers is currently open. Abstracts have to be submitted by May 30. There's a website, but it's not including the current CfP. If you are interested, send me an email or leave your email address in the comments, and I can forward you the contact data and template.

And a second CfP that reached me with the request to spread widely, so I will just paste it here:



Call for Papers, Annals of Leisure Research, Special Issue: THE DRESS ISSUE

Guest Editor:Prof Alison L Goodrum, Department of Apparel, Manchester Metropolitan University, England

According to Entwistle (2000: 6) “all people dress the body in some way, be it through clothing, tattooing, cosmetics or other forms of body painting. To put it another way, no culture leaves the body unadorned but adds to, embellishes, enhances or decorates the body”.  In this scholarly definition, even Nudists and Naturists, although eschewing material items of clothing, are dressed, be this in the form of, say, a splash of perfume, a slick of moisturiser, a necklace or a goatee beard.  This Special Issue takes this expansive definition of dress and explores its application to, and significance within, Leisure Studies.

The links between dress and leisure are multiple, longstanding, and range across time and space.  In the 1920s, for example, French couturière, Coco Chanel, gave utilitarian jersey fabric a high fashion ‘spin’, endorsing its easy-to-wear qualities as a motif for modern living.  And, today, stretchiness and comfort remain as important material properties in both active- and leisurewear.  While certain leisure pursuits call for ‘dressing down’ and the wearing of decidedly non-specialist dress, other leisure activities demand modes of dress that are strictly policed and/or technically sophisticated.  On a cultural note, sports-based communities such as ‘Bikers’, ‘Skaters’ and ‘Surfies’ identify themselves tribally through esoteric sartorial markers (favouring a particular brand of clothing, for example).

The current resurgence of handcrafting, knitting and home dressmaking as a cross-generational, fashionable, and often gender-distinctive, pastime, presents yet a further link between leisure and dress: one that relates to making-as-hobby.  The vernacular in dress is pertinent, too, to sporting spectatorship. For example, fans may use make-shift props, face-paints and fancy dress costuming to display support for individual players or teams. More generally, sports fans comprise an eager and profitable cohort of consumers keen to purchase goods relating to their interests such as replica kits and commemorative garments and merchandise.

Shopping for fashionable dress and accessories is itself, for some, an all-consuming pastime or passion.  The practice of shopping has altered radically over the past decade with internet and TV shopping offering alternative routes to market and, with them, shifts in the consumer experience.  Other alternative sites and spaces for the consumption of dress include the car boot sale, thrift store, flea market and swap shop. These informal, often festive or festival-like spaces, move the consumption of dress from formalised retail industry into the realm of entertainment.

The Special Issue seeks, then, to capture, and to map, the diversity and dynamism of the many links between dress and leisure. The discipline of Leisure Studies has engaged with these links but has tended to do so in a haphazard way, touching on dress as an adjunct to, or spin-off from, larger projects. The proposed Issue will marshal together original research papers on dress and leisure, an underexplored, and perhaps under-considered, area in Leisure Studies. The outcome will be a publication that repositions dress as a central, and significant, subject in, and for, leisure, whilst simultaneously promoting leisure as a rich topic, too, for scholars from such disciplines as fashion theory and dress history.  We welcome paper submissions that address any of the following (and related) topics on dress and aspects of leisure (as well as relevant others):

·         Style tribes and leisure/sporting subcultures and fandom
·         Performance-, active-wear and technical design in/for leisure and sport
·         Histories of leisure and dress
·         Spaces and sites of/for leisure and the performance of dress
·         Buying, shopping and consumption of dress as leisure, pleasure and/or anxiety
·         Leisure, sport and the dressed and/or undressed body
·         Collecting dress, shoes, accessories and bodily adornment/s
·         Craft, making and the (domestic) production of dress as a leisure pursuit
·         Leisure, dress and non-conformity/subversion

Important Dates for Authors:

Submission of Abstracts: Please send proposed paper title and an abstract of no more than 250 words to the guest editor, Alison Goodrum (Diese E-Mail-Adresse ist vor Spambots geschützt! Zur Anzeige muss JavaScript eingeschaltet sein.) no later than 21^st July 2014. We will advise the outcome no later than 4^th August 2014.

Submission of Full Paper: 2^nd March 2015 (further details to be advised upon confirmation of abstract acceptance).
Publication: First issue of 2016 (approximately January)

Doug asks

So maybe you have answered this before but I was wondering how you got involved in researching/making textiles.

I might have answered this before, but I actually can't remember - and since I have no idea on where to find the post, if such a one does exist...

It all started ages ago, when I was sweet seventeen years old. In a small village close to where I grew up, there was an annual "Ritterfest" (which is a medieval Festival thingie). One of my school comrades lived in that village, and she participated there, showing visitors how to make felt - so the next day, I dressed up in something not even vaguely historically correct and joined her, and the rest of the fun. I fell in love with the camaraderie and the bonfire evenings and hanging out and singing songs with other people around said fires that weekend. Shortly after, I started going to other, similar, events with a few people from that group... and that, of course, meant that I needed something to wear. The first piece I made for myself was a hood, by the way, and nothing I made back then was historically correct.

Fast forward about two years - time to decide what to do after school. After realising that the things I had thought about were not what I wanted to do after all, I sat down and made a list of stuff I would like to have included in my job. Things like being able to work outside, but also doing reading and desk work; maybe do something that involved other people; something practical, and something that had to do with the Middle Ages. When leafing through the Uni Guide, I stumbled across something that seemed to fit: Medieval Archaeology. And that's how I ended up in Bamberg. My parents were happy to support the choice I made, study-wise, and made it possible for me to become an archaeologist. (Thank you so much, you two!)

Back when I started my studies, going to medieval markets and similar events was still considered something a bit weird and thoroughly un-academic, much more so than these days. It was a growing trend, though, and I kept on going to these events, using them to try out garments and equipment pieces and crafts techniques. Now, however, I also had proper archaeological literature about medieval textiles, so my clothes did improve. (Over time - that was a longer process.) Textiles fascinated me more and more, and by the time I wrote my master's thesis, I was fully focused on textiles and clothing - a development I have never regretted.

And that is the full story of how I ended up researching garments and textile techniques - a teenage friend, a few lucky coincidences, some uni colleagues also interested in textiles who pointed me to books when I started out, and the opportunity to try out things and gain experience with cloth and clothing "in the wild", they all came together to make me insatiably curious to learn more about dress back then. (Hint: It hasn't lost any of its fascination on me yet.)

Thank you for asking stuff in the post from two days ago, Suzanne and Marianne!

Regarding the Schnittbücher from the Kickstarter project, the Kickstarter books are scheduled to go out in June this year (though I wouldn't be at all surprised if it took considerably longer, knowing how things go in the publishing world). Marion says that they will be available  via Amazon US and DE after the rewards have gone out - so you will be able to get your copy.

And Suzanne asks about sewing techniques in 7th century. As far as I can tell, there are about the same stitches and techniques in use as for later sewing -with the exception of things like buttonholes, which were not yet so in vogue. There's a nice overview of sewing techniques published for the Haithabu finds (later than your intended period, though) and these are not too different from the later garments. There's not so much variation to be had for a straight seam, after all: running stitch seams and overcast seams are already found in the Hallstatt material from Bronze and Iron age.
7th century Frisians are, unfortunately, not very much in my core confidence zone either, and I can't think of any books with good textile finds from that era and region off the top of my head - sorry.