There's this half-joking rule for IT guys and programmers that goes:

If you have a job to do and need to find out how long it will take, do the following.
Estimate the length of time you will need to do the job. Now take that number and increase it to the next number of magnitude - minutes into hours, hours into days, days into weeks and so on.
Now you add three. That's how long it will take.

Maybe I should start to use this rule as a hard-and-steady rule for my work stuff - like getting the webpage overhauled (well, yes, that did go on hiatus for quite a while), the online shop running (I didn't realise how much Holy Saint Bureaucracius would need to be revered) or the Spinning Experiment all wrapped up.

Ah, the Spinning Experiment. Yes, the results have been found and the paper is in the processing; but I have one thing left to do with the data, and that is cleaning it up a little, translating some of the extra info into English and then packing it up nicely for everyone to download from the Forum webpage. And for that, I need to sort through the yarn cop photos.

I took at least three photos from each sample, and I will just upload one, the best one regarding light and contrast. So I need to pick out those that should be uploaded, resize them a bit and then pack them into a .zip file. And that's still left to do. Sometimes I'm really, really amazed at how much time that Experiment gobbled up... though I'd do it again, it has been totally worth it.

And sometime soon, you will get a note on this blog that the data is up...

On Sunday evening, Sabine and I have made the final decision on whether there will be a Textile Forum this year... or not.

It was a hard one - we did re-calculate twice, we thought hard about it some more (that was a topic already discussed time and again during the last month), and it did make us very sad, but we finally decided to cancel Textile Forum 2011. There were too few registrations in spite of all the plugging we did - here, on Facebook, on Huscarl, via the Forum newsletter, and in spite of all the promotion that friends, colleagues, former and current participants did (and our heartfelt thanks for that!). We are fine with a small event, but too small a group means that the Forum idea will not work properly. And while day visitors or short-term participants are a very welcome addition to the participant group, the core group has to be large enough to carry the event on their own.

We are deeply sorry to miss out a Textile Forum, but we are certain that it is better to have a one-year hiatus than to see through a Forum that will not measure up to the participants' expectations (or to ours). It was a hard step for us to take, and I feel almost as if a pet had died - the Forum is a thing very dear to me, and having no Forum this year does make me very sad.

"Es hat nicht sollen sein" (it was not meant to be) is the German phrase that perfectly fits this year's Forum planning, which was quite generously garnished with larger and smaller troubles, now culminating in the cancellation. We are, however, working on the Forum 2012 already - we will not be stopped by one single squib load. We'll be keeping you up to date about developments once we have settled things with our prospective venue.

And we do hope to see you then and there!

As you may have noticed (due to the obvious lack of a blog post declaring my victory over the online shop setup and testing), the webshop is not running yet. Of course.

Have you ever stumbled across those ads promising you to set up your own online store in just a few minutes, free! or for such a low price! It only takes a minute! Go do it now! - have you? Well, let me tell you... it's not that easy, and it will definitely take more than a minute.

If you want to do it properly... much more than a minute.

First of all, there's always the choice whether you want a pre-hosted "rental" shop or whether you want to host and run your own software. Rentals are easier to set up, yes, but they will charge you a monthly amount or severely restrict your product number. A self-hosted shop means you will have to familiarise yourself with the software (once you chose one) and get it to run smoothly and properly. In my case (as you may have guessed), I have opted for self-hosting, and I have actually managed to install both the basic CMS and the shop module after reading up on and fumbling with different softwares for three days.

Then it's down to the shop itself. Design the surface (or at least adapt the template a little and construct a good menu), insert all the products complete with their tax rate, price, description, title - oh, and photo. I haven't taken the photos yet, by the way. If the shop is supposed to come in German and English (at the moment I'm working on the German version), all the text has to be translated as well.

Then there's the payment stuff. Figuring out which payments to use (by the way, what do you prefer? I'd be grateful for a comment!) and getting an idea about how much of the price will go to the payment service as service fee.

Then there's shipping and handling. And that means divining a shipping fee with which the customers will still be able to live, but which will cover a) the cost of the actual shipping fee by the shipping company; b) the cost of packaging materials; c) the time required to drop off the package or the cost of getting it fetched.

And that, my friends, was the easy and straightforward stuff. One thing is still missing: Revering the Holy Saint Bureaucrazius. Because, you see, we're in Germany here... which means that for opening an online shop, you not only need a trade licence (got that), you also need proper, waterproof, non-dissuadable Terms and Conditions. Well, preferrably. And then you need a Privacy Policy declaration. And a declaration of return and withdrawal rights for the customer, because it's a "remote buy" process.

And finally, because the recipient of the package will probably toss the box it came in into the trash, you actually need to pay a fee to cover the recycling costs of the cardboard or plastic or whatever you use for packaging, unless you can prove that the recycling fees for them have already been paid by somebody else. Which is a real bummer if you do not expect to sell a lot of stuff.


All that paperwork-ish work and all the setup work required has thus lead Sabine from the Wollschmiede and myself to wonder if we shouldn't just team up for the online shop and make a common one. Now... we'd only need to figure out how to do that technically, logistically and bureaucratically - because if we do it together, it might even induce some more official paperwork.

Welcome to Germany.

It's really nice and summery here - the strawberries are ripening, peonies and the rose are in bloom as well as a gazillion of other plants, and the tomatoes are doing their best to get nice and plump.

Apart from that, of course there's a lot of plants that grow where they are not really supposed to grow, so a part of yesterday evening was spent in the garden, doing necessary work. Among this was cutting back all the dog rose shoots and stems that were threatening to suffocate the "real" rose - which means that of a huge bush of greenery with thorns, three meager stems are left. But at least one of the stems is blooming, and it's now much easier to eliminate unwanted plants from below the rose.

And while I'm talking about garden stuff... here is my latest gardening insight: Neither tomatoes nor strawberries will turn red faster if you tell them dirty jokes. Which is a pity, really...

First of all, our apologies to everybody who tried to register for the Textile Forum since the 8th of June - we had a server malfunction that I only discovered yesterday evening. If you have sent or tried to send a registration after the 8th,  please send me an e-mail to katrin(at)textileforum.org, and we will take it from there. To make up for the server problem, we have extended te deadline to the 19th (that's Sunday this week). We are deeply sorry for the inconvenience.

And now some plugging of a conference with a much better webpage - there's a small group in the Czech Republic who are doing a historic-clothes-centered conference on the  19th
November 2011 in Hradec Králové. The programme is mostly in Czech, with two papers announced in English, and the main aim of the group (mostly not scientists from the textile field) is knowledge exchange. (Now doesn't that sound familiar?) I'd love to go, but unfortunately my Czech language skills will barely get me a cup of tea and dumplings after saying "Good day", so I'm afraid I will have to pass.

For those of you interested in joining the seminar, their webpage sports a registration form. And for those of you not interested, but with a minute or two to spare - go there anyway and have a look at the website. You don't need to be able to understand a single word of Czech - just click through the six menu points and enjoy the most beautifully made conference website that I have ever seen.

Today is the last day of the registration period for the Textile Forum in Asparn an der Zaya - if you are planning to attend, please register!

We need the registrations to plan ahead for the Forum, and we still do not have enough participants. We would deeply regret not to have a Textile Forum this year, but at the moment, it does not look good.

Please visit our website www.textileforum.org and have a look if you are interested in working historical textile crafts. We do welcome both professionals and non-professionals, and the last two Forums have been a total blast and a wonderful experience for all participants. We've been offered a Sprang workshop, a dyeing demonstration or workshop, and it is the perfect opportunity to spend a few days working intensively with plant fibres - doesn't that sound tempting?

Well, not only German - the Austrians have it as well, but it's not that common in most other countries. Even though it's so nice...


What I am talking about? The Schorle. In case you never heard about it, a Schorle is a mixed drink consisting of about half (carbonated) water and half something else - the most typical non-alcoholic Schorle would be the Apfelschorle (water and apple juice), but there's lots of other juices used for Schorle as well. You can also get Schorle in the alcoholic version, with either red or white wine mixed with water.

During NESAT in Esslingen, I was a little surprised that a lot of the non-Germans and non-Austrians didn't really know the concept. One Swede actually professed getting addicted to this Schorle stuff - and I can understand that: it's really neat. You get a large drink that has some sparkle and a lot of taste, but is not as sweet-and-sticky as pure juice would be. And Apfelschorle, mixed with three quarters water and one quarter juice, is about isotonic as well (says the German wikipedia, which, in contrast to the English wikipedia, has a lot to say about the topic).

When I was younger, there was a different Schorle version quite usual as well: Applejuice mixed half-and-half with lemonade (the sweet clear carbonated "lemon"-flavored kind), the so-called "Apfelschorle süß" (süß means sweet) in contrast to the "Apfelschorle sauer" (sour, you probably guessed it). It seems, however, that everybody ordered the sour kind mixed with water, since the sweet version has about disappeared from menus everywhere now. A while ago, we found a menu where the sweet kind was still printed, and everyone on the table sort of went "Wow, they still have that??"

So... in case you are looking for a nice summer drink that's healthier than pure juice or soft drinks, but still has taste - and does quench thirst very nicely - you might want to try this Schorle stuff. I've been having it all my life, and if I'm not in need of a caffeine jolt, it's still my staple order in a restaurant or pub. And I think it's an idea worth spreading.