Some problems you can solve with scissors. Or shears. Like getting the wool from sheep.
Some problems you can solve with maths. Like how much to charge for shearing a sheep.

Now, a lot of textile people are not so very fond of maths - maybe this would be a good suggestion to make maths textbooks more textile-people friendly:





Shear transformation, anyone?

(via cheezburger.com)

You remember the post about the actual digging out of a skeleton? A second part of this has now been put online by Mattis Hensch of the Schauhuette:




And there's one more video of the anthropological examination of the skeleton as well - you find the link to the video here.

If you are interested in Vikings and Viking Archaeology, you probably know that there is L'Anse aux Meadows, a Norse or Viking settlement in Canada. This was the first, and up to now only, known proof for the arrival of the Norse in Vinland (that's how they seem to have called the fabled continent way, way over the sea).

Now I have stumbled over an article published in National Geographic, and there is a second settlement where finds very, very strongly indicate that it was not made by indigenous population. The finds are from Baffin Island, in Canada, far above the Arctic Circle and north of Hudson Bay. Archaeologist Patricia Sutherland looked at the finds, made in the 1980s by a missionary, in the archive of a museum in Quebec in 1999 - and found out that the yarn which was part of the finds is a match for thread finds from the Norse colony in Greenland. Since the indigenous people of Baffin Island did not spin, this is the first very strong hint it was a Norse colony.

Recent excavation in the place seem to corroborate this - they found whetstones. But isn't it nice that the yarn finds opened up the way?

Debbie of the Mulberry Dyer has blogged about Cream of Tartar that is part of quite a few historical dye recipes, and of some modern ones, too. It seems that some dye retailers want their customers to buy the tartar in their own shops and not in the grocery store, so they say that the cream of tartar used for baking is the wrong chemical.

Well, that's nasty behaviour - since it isn't. Go read Debbie's blog about that. It also includes some more info on what the stuff is, chemically, and where it comes from. (Wikipedia has some more, and different, info as well.) The German name is much clearer about this - it calls the chemical "Weinstein", literally translating as "Wine Stone". And that's exactly how you can find it: As small crystals or stones on the bottom of wine barrels or sometimes wine bottles or sometimes even in grape juice. We get our grape juice as 5 l bag-in-box thingies, either red or white, from the Weingut Hechler - and I have found tartar in there once the bag was empty.

So if you need tartar for something... here is your perfect excuse to get some wine or good grape juice.

I am back from a wonderful and relaxing few days with friends, spent chatting, eating, laughing and playing lots and lots of wonderful (board-)games. This was just what I had needed - and now I will get back to work. There's emails to be read, books to be catalogued, and papers to be prepared!

And since it's a long while since I last posted a link to this, it's time to mention the Handweaving Archive again. The site hosts a lot of old instructive and informative texts not only regarding weaving and weaving techniques, but also other textile techniques. It's a good site to know, and a place to spend lots and lots of time in.

Summer is over, all the leaves are turning into colourful leaves (except those that have died of the cold already, like the morning glory in the garden), it's getting cold in the evening and the night, and my consumption of hot caffeinated beverages... no, it's not more frequent. But that's not due to the weather.

Things, otherwise, are progressing here as well: The achilles tendon of the most patient husband of them all is slowly healing, the heaps of washing after the season have been cleared away, the bookkeeping has been done, and I am in the middle of planning sessions for conferences and other activities in the near and middle future - among them a trip to Cardiff to the experimental archaeology conference there.

Just now, however, I will take a few days off. Things have been rather hectic around here since before the Textile Forum, and now that the most urgent stuff has been dealt with, I will take a little time to regenerate. I will be back on the blog on Monday.

Now that it's getting later in the year, cooler, with less pollen hanging out in the air and being possible provokers of allergic reaction, what does our little cat do? She goes and coughs again. Despite getting allergy medication already. Gah.

So we'll be off to the vet (again), trying to find out how bad it is and what we can do against it. Just what I needed to make my scheduling today a little more difficult.

Apart from the coughing, though, she's fine. A little stressed maybe, due to a red tom hanging out in our garden - he's obviously interested in getting to know her a little better, but she is not interested in him, it seems. We're very curious to see if it will develop into a cat friendship or not.