So after spending most of yesterday installing ImageJ, reading through its documentation, playing around, recording macros and trying to figure out how to get a clean, reliable output of data with actually useful information... I think I have figured out a way to do it.

Well, this still entails having to make a visual survey card with very good contrast between card and yarn and then scanning it in at a suitably high resolution before being able to evaluate the threads, but that is still much less work and equipment than would be needed to do it the usual way (which is climatising the yarn, then cutting it into small, exactly measured snippets, then weighing each of the snippets and calculating the tex value, and finally getting an overview of how regular or irregular it is), plus it's a non-invasive method.

So now I only (hah!) need to figure out a way to implement my ideas and make things nice and reliable so that they work with all the visual survey cards, plus devise some macros that deliver the data to files in a sensible way to make it all less work and more click-and-be-happy.

Yay. And this, by the way, again proves my point that whatever skill you pick up, you will eventually be able to use it for work when you are an archaeologist. Including basic programming knowledge.

I may or may not have found a way to consistently and quickly measure both the diameter of hand-spun yarns and their thickness variance. With no highly specialised tools for textile analysis.

Actually, with very few tools at all.

I will know whether I can go "Hah!" in joy about that once I have bent my mind around the working functions of one or a few picture analysis programmes... and then I'll tell you all about it.

Things are still busy here, and a good bit of that is due to a bit of additional research I'm doing on the Spinning Experiment data. And totally related to this, we have figured out most of the things we needed to figure out for the next Textile Forum, and I will be working to update the website during one of the next days, and writing the call for papers for the Forum.

If you are already thinking about it: We will be in Mayen, Germany, from September 10 to September 16, and the focus topic will be "Metal in Textile Crafts". Stay tuned to learn more about it soon!

It's getting more and more dangerously close to the festive days, and I'm doing what I have traditionally been doing these last few years: I'm baking cookies - with help from the most patient husband of them all (who tries to turn a blind eye towards the mess I make of the kitchen) and with some additional help from friends. It's the traditional family baking (at least the bulk of it) that I took over from one of my Grandmothers, main cookie producer before me. And since the goodies are supposed to last for at least three nice afternoon coffees with family and maybe some additional friends, I make a good-sized batch.
The nice thing about typical German-style cookies for this season is that they can be made quite a while before they are supposed to be eaten, since they keep very well and usually get better with some time in a tin. So it's not a baking frenzy (at least  not necessarily) but can be distributed over a few weeks.

Plus there's Christmas markets everywhere now and rich food and hot tea or mulled wine, and much meeting with friends. Only the snow is still lacking around here!

Seasonal food at this time of year, in Germany, means food like duck and goose and dumplings and rich sauce and red cabbage. (And usually eating way too much. Which happened to me yesterday evening, so my brain is not all awake yet, which means you get a food blog entry.)

Now red cabbage is an interesting thing, because it is called either Blaukraut - blue cabbage - or Rotkraut - red cabbage - here, depending on the region and the regional typical way of preparing it. And both names fit the food, red or blue, because the colourant in the cabbage reacts to acid or alkaline milieu by a colour change. If you prepare it with lots of acid, it turns red. If you prepare it with only very little acid, it will turn purple.

And if you would like to see that for yourself, you can do so here. Or do a picture search for "Blaukraut" and "Rotkraut" and see all those colours!

There are times when I am going "oh, sure, we can do that!" and then, much later, this harmless little phrase comes back and bites me in the butt.

Like it did in regard to the introduction article for the Textile Forum proceedings book which is under construction at the moment (I've been told that most of the contributors are writing furiously these days, just like me). Yes, of course Sabine and I can write an intro about the Forum - why it is what it is, what the idea behind it was, how it is supposed to work.

And somehow this little article, only intended as a short intro, is now developing a life of its own. Dragging me off into side aspects and luring my mind away to think about how much of a craft process series one single crafter should know, or should need to master. After all, there's lots and lots of work and skill involved in seemingly simple things, like a cheeseburger or a pencil. (If you're only going to click one of these links - click the pencil one.)

So here I am, pondering things... and expanding the little intro article a way beyond what it was originally intended to be.

And you know what? I like that.

I stumbled across an interesting link the other day - scientists expressing their love for their topic, and their geekiness, by ink in their skin:

http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/science-tattoo-emporium/

There are some really amazing tattoos in there!