I'm simultaneously wishing it were Friday and wishing it were Tuesday - I am really looking forward to having a nice weekend and a bit of time off, but there's also still a lot to do, with too little time, as usual.

While I am trying to decide whether I would prefer it to be earlier or later this week, here are some links for you that you hopefully find interesting:

The Yarn Harlot writes about the importance of blocking. (For the non-knitters among you, that's finishing a completely knitted piece so it looks its best.)

On a similar note, here's a piece about why fabrics shrink when they get wet. It seems to mostly be about cotton, and the pdf linked in the post does not mention different materials (or material at all), but it might still be interesting.

Kristina asks who needs an osteologist. (Hint: If you are going to say stuff about bones, ask  someone who knows their way around them first.)

There's an exhibition about Tudor and Stuart clothing as shown in portraiture, in Edinburg. It will run until July 20.

And for those of you who read German, Archaeologik has an article about archaeological publications and censoring due to political reasons.

That's it for today... see you tomorrow, on the real Friday. (Can't wait. Oh no, wait, Friday already? Can I have Wednesday instead, please?)

I was all set, yesterday, for finishing the woman's overgarment before ending my day... and then my current favourite needle broke. To be more precise, it's eye broke. (I'm always tempted to write "ear" of the needle, since the German word for the needle's eye, "Öhr", is close to the German word for ear, "Ohr".) I took that for a sign, heaved a sigh, and got some chocolate.

Over time, I've killed quite a few needles - they have a limited life-span, after all. I had the classic broken needle (shaft snapping in two), I also had needles bent so badly that I did not really like working with them anymore, but I think this is about the first time the end of the eye snapped off.

Over time, I've also learned that what my favourite needle is depends on the fabric I'm working with, the thread I'm using, and my current state of mind. Quite a few of my needles had that position for a while, and it's also quite possible for them to re-gain it one day.

Fortunately, I have found another needle quite like the one that broke in my stash. (Needle stash. Good thing. Good thing.) The surcot is almost done... whew.

"Next month is the SAA session on blogging so this will be the final question for #blogarch. Learning from my mistakes this will be an actual question this time.

The last question is where are you/we going with blogging or would you it like to go? I leave it up to you to choose between reflecting on you and your blog personally or all of archaeology blogging/bloggers or both. Tells us your goals for blogging. Or if you have none why that is? Tell us the direction that you hope blogging takes in archaeology."

It's the final installment of the BlogArch Carnival... and yes, of course I'll participate again - won't miss this! So... Where do I want to go with blogging? Hm.

There's dreams and wishes when I think about my blog, and then there's my realistic brain which tells me things about the dreams and wishes. If I dream wildly, I would love my blog to be as well-read as the Yarn Harlot's, or Scalzi's blog, and feature actual scientific-ish content with lots of pictures and new insights and information about clothes and techniques. My realistic brain, when it catches me dreaming thusly, tells me that I would need to devote much more time to the blog in that case. And if I had so many comments, it would suck all my time to read them. (Also, many comments come with much spam.)

I would like to blog more about actual archaeological stuff, and do more reseach-esque posts on the blog, but I know this is more like a dream than an actual goal I can realistically achieve. Writing a proper post about some piece of garment (or some other research subject) takes an astonishing amount of time, and that won't fit in with my schedule most days. Ironically, it's especially when I am doing more research than usual that I have even less time to spend on the blog...
I've thought about this from time to time, but after a while of almost beating myself up about it I realised that most of the blogs that do research-type articles don't update that often. I know myself, though - if I would switch to posting occasionally aiming for longer pieces, that's when I would start posting not at all. (So these short uninspired blog posts that come up from time to time are the price I make you pay for keeping blogging. Sorry.)

My hope for this blog is that I can keep going with enough variation and enough interesting posts that I can gain more readers than I lose. I'm well aware that blogs are not something you read forever - interests change as do priorities and styles of writing, and if you blog about a certain topic you are bound to repeat yourself sooner or later. There's quite a list of blogs these days that I used to read, but stopped after a while - because the blog's focus changed, because my interest in the topic waned, because I felt that I got no new input, or because I was annoyed by the much too infrequent updates. Some blogs fell silent, and I missed them a lot for a while.

In retrospective, most of the blogs that fell silent after a while or that I stopped reading because it felt like repetition of the same, the same were those relatively restrictive in their topics. Which seems to make sense to me - the more variety you have, the less you need to repeat. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.)

With the mix of topics I have, I'm still far from the big-player territory like IT stuff, so my blog will probably never become a huge blog with gazillions of readers; but if enough people read something like a Call for Papers or a heads-up to a free access week or something like that to make a difference for a few of you, I'm quite happy.

Otherwise, I'm not planning to go anywhere with this blog. I plan to stay right here, writing something every weekday, keeping my favourite second language polished and making the occasional weird mistake with it, posting too few pics and bombarding you with links that you might find helpful, or amusing, or none of both.

As for blogging in archaeology in general - I'd love to have more textile archaeology blogs around. (If you know of any, please let me know!) I also love to hear about current developments in excavations, or finds of dress accessories. Getting more people to know about the actual work in the dirt, not just the spectacular finds, would surely be a good thing for all of us archies.

Seems like the much-needed weekend is over, since my calendar and everything else with a date on tells me it's Monday. Oh well. I shall get to work then, right?

While I finish the last seam on the lady's surcot (getting it into a state where I can mark out hems and neck opening) and cut the middle gores for the tunic (getting this into a similar state, plus some sewing and neatening), you could check out this post about books of remarkable women.

Or you could go over here and read about Eastern Uncrossed knitting and yarn tension.

Me, now, I will go fix myself a coffee... because coffee always helps. Well, almost always, anyways.

Okay, here's the deal: You are getting pics today, but they are of the "quick-snap" variety, with colours slightly off and quality not as good as it could be. Plus you're not getting much text with them.

But hey, pics!

The surcot for the lady in progress:


There's a lot of basting going on for this one. A lot.



The purple tunic for the man, also in progress (still missing two gores):


The sleeve is done, though.




This one's finished. Whew. (That's a decorative silk facing on the neck opening that tried to eat all my patience, and all my sanity.)



Buttons!



And partly finished hose for the lady, in a night blue. (The foot part is not yet done, and I'll need a final fitting for this.)
 

• Plus a gratuitous cat pic.

I'm still sewing (a lot), and I'm still behind on what I had intended to keep as a schedule (mostly due to a much-needed desk day, taking care of some paperwork stuff inbetween). There is progress... but not yet enough to make me breathe freely again.

It was clear from the beginning that this project would be a tight schedule, so at least I'm not surprised. The therefore also unsurprising lack of photos which I promised you, repeatedly, is to blame on the lack of time that I have. Taking photos doesn't take long, basically - but usually turns out to take longer than intended, and I currently don't feel like taking that "risk".

While I am sewing happily along, I'm listening to stuff. To be more precise: to podcasts. Especially nice, in my opinion: I get to listen to stories, in addition to listening to all that other stuff that I have (from Kickstarters, for example) and never gotten around to immersing myself into it. If you are looking for stories, you might want to check out EscapePod and PodCastle, both posting stories every week or so. I'm also thinking about checking out one or a few knitting podcasts, but haven't gotten around to checking these out yet.

For those of you more interested in medieval cooking, two cookbooks (the oldest ones in Britain so far) are mentioned over on the Medieval Manuscripts blog (the catalogue is updated again).

I am really looking forward to having this project all off my hands some time around Easter - the next sewing project in line comes, fortunately, with a kinder schedule, and I will have some time inbetween to take care of the other (not less exciting things) that are piling up here. (There will be hand-made needles in my shop, some day in the future. And beautiful, carbon-steel scissors without the ubiquitous nickel-plating, and closely resembling medieval finds in their shape.)

The new knitty is out, and while most of the patterns are not what I would utterly want to knit, there's a lure to a blog called Knitting Nuances that sounds really interesting. (In a similar yet different way to TechKnitting, in case you don't know that one yet.) Unluckily for me, I have a purple tunic calling, very loudly, to me from the living room table... which is where I shall speed directly to get some work done.

One day, though, when I have some time again and all the urgent stuff has been dealt with, I will really need to knit a "show-all-the-different-stitches" swatch. You know... increases, decreases, twists, slips, that stuff. I have a pattern swatch with different stitch, hem and seam types for sewing work, and that has been a very helpful explanation and teaching tool, as well as a nice reference. Soon. Soon. (Well. Soon-ish.)