I perfectly know it's not Friday yet. But oh, how I wish it to be - even though there is lots to do still this week. (Or maybe exactly because of that?)

It's Thursday, though, and a stack of books is waiting for me in the library, a not insignificant number of them about Indigo dyeing. There was that resist-dye experiment last Textile Forum (you might remember), and I am currently writing up the artice about it. Which at some places requires a bit more research into why things happened the way they happened... hence I was ordering in literature.

Oh, and I'm writing up the article now because it is planned for publication in our second Textile Forum Proceedings volume. We are getting a second volume! I am still all feeling fluffy inside about that. Back in, oh, autumn 2008, when Sabine, Roeland and I sat in the pub on the last evening of the EXAR conference and Sabine and I said "we totally need to have a crafts-focused yearly conference for textile people" and "we sort of have the suspicion that if we don't go ahead and organise it, that will never happen" and Roeland said "I can set you up a contact with Eindhoven", neither of us would have thought to one day have a book with proceedings, let alone more than one. So yes, we are very, very happy about that.

So. Not Friday yet. More work. But happy work.

And what a red. A beautiful, deep, warm red with slight changes in tone depending on how you look onto it.

Pictures, I hear you clamour. Here you go:


You are only getting the unfocused one because a certain person has been requesting gratuitous cat photos for a while, and the focused pic has no cat on it.



This is how it looks from another angle. Aaah.



And finally, a gratuitous cat pic. She's doing very well, the little cat. (Yesterday she figured out how to tell me she needs a stupid willing human to throw her some balls and stuff because she wants to play.)

 


Oh, and the best thing about the cloth? I get to cut it up and make a beautiful dress from it. Yay!

While sitting and sewing, finishing an article, working on a book project and trying to finish knitting a project I want to have on the table, together with a for-sale pattern at LonCon, I have also been doing research about early medieval garments (again). And part of this was done with help of a manuscript with lots and lots of illuminations - the "Stuttgarter Psalter".

It's from the first half of the 9th century, originates from Saint-Germain-des-Près, and currently hangs out in the collection of the library in Stuttgart. Where, praised be digitisation, it has been fully digitised and can now also hang out on your screen, if you follow this link. (Hint: If you should happen to need to download one of the pages at full resolution, zoom in a little bit before you hit "save this image" - that gives you the big one instead of the smaller non-zoomed preview. Smart, smart programmers.)

Should you prefer your manuscripts from the second half of the tenth century in Britain, however, you might want to check out this blog post instead. Or go straight to BL Add MS 49598.

Do you know that feeling that the plan of the year slowly emerges out of fog and nothingness? January and February are the two months when plans are made and dates are fixed, and the calendar becomes spattered and sprinkled with colourful spots all over. It's an exciting time every time it comes around!

And for 2014, there are a few things fixed that I am really looking forward to already.

As usual, I will be in Freienfels with my market stall. Freienfels this year is April 30 to May 4, and the market is open for all visitors during the weekend.

Next on my calendar is the International Museum Day on May 18, which I will spend at the Stadtmuseum Bietigheim-Bissingen, demonstrating spinning technique both with distaff and spindle and with the Great Wheel.

Right after that comes the NESAT in Hallstatt, a conference I've been looking forward to for, as usual, the last three years.

Next up is a semi-private medieval event in Herzberg, running from June 27 to July 6. The event after that is the exact opposite to private, however: Together with Margit Ströbele from Alte Künste, I will be running a dealer's table at LonCon3! I will also give a paper about textile techniques on the academic programme there. If you are at LonCon, make sure to drop by!

If you want to learn a textile technique or need assistance in tailoring a garment, I have course dates planned for September 6-7 and October 25-26. As usual, details and booking info can be found on my shop page.

And the last date already fixed and agreed upon for 2014 at the moment is our next Textile Forum, which will take place 3-9 November, again in Mayen (we love it there). If you want to keep informed about the Textile Forum, you can subscribe to our newsletter on the Forum homepage.

And if you want to keep informed about my upcoming events and dates, you can always check the list of them on my homepage.

As you can see, the year promises to be full of interesting events already, and I am looking forward to maybe meeting a few more of you this year.

It has finally cooled down far enough that we have some snow hanging out on the lawn and on the streets, and that the temperatures are more winter-like.

While I'm not so easily feeling cold when walking around outside, though, the cooler temperatures mean I get cold easier when sitting at my desk. Which, for me today, means warm socks and a warm sweater and nice, hot tea. And chocolate. Everybody knows that chocolate is a warming food, right?

Links, too. Links make one feel warmer. Possibly. (Though even if they don't, you will get some anyhow.)

Oxbow has a large amount of special offers on their webpage, including quite a few textile-related ones.

If you would rather test your (German language) knowledge of the medieval times, you can try yourself in this quiz from Uni Tübingen. (You're out after the third wrong answer.)

Also German: how to make a brush out of a goose feather, a bit of goat fur, and a wooden stick. Plenty of pictures, though, so you should be able to follow it even without knowing German.

I stumbled across a blogpost yesterday that really, really touched me... written by Pat Rothfuss, and concerning charity, and why he does so much for charity.

Personally, I try to be a positive human being, and I try to believe in the good of others. I am generally very, very content about the many good things in my life; and I can sleep comfortably at night in a proper warm bed, unafraid of getting up tomorrow with no money, no home, no friends and no chances. That is a big thing, and more than enough to get a warm fuzzy feeling inside.
I also believe that if life were fair, there would be no hunger in the world and no utter poorness, my friends and family would never fall nastily ill (nobody cares for a cold or a small nuisance now and then), and everyone who was working honestly for a living should be able to lead a reasonably comfortable life off their income.

Unfortunately, life is not fair. There were illnesses and diagnoses of illnesses and deaths aplenty last year in the circles I move in, and there's nothing one can do against it but try to encourage and support those that live and remember, fondly, those that have stopped living. There's also war, and poverty, and misery, and lots more stuff going on in the world that I don't even really want to know about in detail, because it will mean I get a bellyache and become frustrated with how unfair the world is and lose sleep for a week. (It's a good thing there are petitions against a lot of political things in this flavour, and that these actually turn out to do some good. Much relieves my frustration and accompanying symptoms.)

I also know that I am not enough to change these big things. I can't make everyone become healthy, wealthy, and friendly to their fellow human beings. I am not the person who will develop a cure for cancer, or ring in world peace, or end all misery on the planet.

However, I've long tried to lead my life so that I can leave the world a little better. I try to be friendly to my fellow human beings, try to pay fair prices for crafts (and make others pay them, too!), spread the word about good things, and I believe that sometimes small acts can make a big difference - especially when there are more people involved.

So what Pat writes in his blog... really touched me. There you have someone trying to make the world a better place, and using his fanbase to help him do so. Thanks, Pat.

I have had my first big insight this year, and it goes thusly: The only think I did lack in my work for being more happy with myself was a tiny little bit more structure.

One thing I love about being a freelancer is the freedom - you can decide, all by yourself, whether you want to work day or night, morning or afternoon; whether you want to take many small breaks or few large ones; and whether you want to work on this project now or the other one. It's not completely free, obviously, as soon as you have something like a social life (which I very much recommend) and something like customers who actually want to see results for the money they pay at a given point in time. But you get my drift - nobody cares whether you have lunch at ten, at four, or not at all.

Turns out nobody cares except myself. A few weeks ago, I started smattering a few more structural anchors into my week, and I am amazed at the difference it makes. Part of them are work-related (projects that I now work on every day, for just a short burst of time), part of them are personal things, and part of them are social. This means that most of my day is still free for me to shift things around, but that all of the current projects on the list get a share of the time, and none of them is neglected over several days, followed by a burst of activity.

I'm not sure whether this little bit more structure has made my work more efficient, but it has certainly made me feel happier as I start my day and work my way through it. So if you are a freelancer starting out, or have self-organised work times and feel not really content with how it goes, you might want to consider giving your days a little more structure... maybe it works as well for you as it does for me.