I'm at a (very) small conference today, my paper is the second one in the morning, and yes, I did finish its preparation in time.

And I finally figured out what made it so weird in preparation... it's mostly NESAT's fault. Because, when you come back from a place where you have been for a week and where somebody says "2/2 twill", everybody nods and goes "ok", or where you say "that sock from Coppergate", and the room goes "ah, that sock" - it is kind of hard to not feel weird when you prepare to explain in a paper how a hand-spindle works.
Plus I've only gone to international conferences during the last few years, and of course I did my papers in English - and today's little thing will be in German, and that also feels kind of weird.

I'm packing up now to head for the conference, and I'm trying to not feel weird.

The past days have been really, utterly crazy, with deadlines coming up so close to each other they might as well play leapfrog to amuse themselves. It has been so crazy that the most patient of all husbands invented a new name for a weekday: Drölftag.

Drölftag happens when you skip at least one weekend because you have to work and thus lose all track of what weekday it is today - since your inner long-term clock has taken the week off in protest. Drölf is, by the way, the first part of "drölfernolzig", and that is an expression meaning something like "umpteen". Monday was a true Drölftag, and now it's almost Friday, and I'm really, utterly looking forward to the breather that the weekend will be, since I will then actually have two full days off. But today, I'm hunting one last deadline (a small paper due tomorrow morning at a small birthday-for-a-prof conference).

Now... where's that net? The bear trap? The infrared motion sensor? I have a deadline to hunt - and these buggers can be fast...

(This was supposed to go live during last week - on the 12th, to be exact. Why on earth it never did - beats me. I'm serving it to you now instead. And I'm retroactively sorry for the blog silence.)

I had an unplanned-for splurging moment in Freienfels, when I went to Sabine's stall on Sunday afternoon and decided that yes, that was my cardigan hanging there in the back of her stall (some assembly required).


I have been ogling the pinwheel sweater (ravelry link) for a good while now, but I absolutely wanted a very nice, gradual colour change. With blues and greys, and maybe some teal. I had been thinking about using Kauni wool, but after knitting my legwarmers last autumn, I decided not to use Kauni ever again - my hand spinning on a bad day is less irregular than that skein I had.

Then I was pondering getting some top, dyed in a gradual colour change, and spin the yarn for the pinwheel. But I don't get to spin much, and the yarn would be very thin, or quite irregular and ugly, or plied from 4 to 5 singles, and I can't see myself finishing anything like that before I'm about 120 years old. Plus I am sort of unwilling to spin dyed top in large amounts. (I much prefer to spin historically prepared wool, nowadays.)

So... I splurged on an array of blues and greys, in really thick and deliciously soft yarn. And I wound the first two balls, on my day off after Freienfels. And started knitting.



Of course, it wouldn't be me knitting if there wouldn't be some modifications. Basic pattern is the pinwheel sweater, but with left-leaning increases instead of yarn-overs, and starting with four stitches from an I-cord "belly button" for a better and easier start.

And I am knitting with two yarns at one time, making "barberpole stripes" for that more or less gradual colour change; each of the two colours has four increases, so I don't have the alternating increase round and plain round, but always the same round (except for where the increases are). One of the yarns increases right before the green markers, the other right before the white markers; each double-round starts with the white-marked yarn. And I've made a bit of progress since taking these pictures - though it will take some time still until I can put in the armholes.

Hooray knitting!

(Update: Since my day off yesterday was partly spent knitting on this, I am by now just a little past the armhole line - so there's garishly red thread knitted in there, to take out later and knit the sleeves on.)

I've finished the current extra-urgent bit of work that was on my list yesterday night, and now I only have to wait for the piece to dry and bring it to the post office. And the rest of today? I'm taking it off. Yay.

But since I promised you more info from NESAT, I will at least tell you about the ATN meeting.
For those of you who have never heard of ATN, it is short for "Archaeological Textiles Newsletter". This has been an institution for quite a few years now, started way back on somebody's kitchen table and sent out as a biannual newsletter.

Nowadays, the ATN is put together, edited and sent out by a small group of people, and it used to be printed at the university press in Copenhagen. However, this printing possibility seems to have ended; the university wants to close its publishing department. And that in turn means the ATN has to make some changes for the future. It is planned to change it to an annual double volume instead of two volumes per year, and of course a new print shop has to be found. Plus a name change has been discussed - from "Archaeological Textiles Newsletter" to "Archaeological Textiles Review", since it seems that something called a newsletter is not worthy for external funding, while something called a review is.

These changes mean that the ATN (or ATR) will need a few more members to survive - so if you are not a subscriber yet, but interested in textile archaeology, please join the "Friends of ATN" (which is a subscription for one year, called membership because of some other bureaucratic issues) and help it survive! 
Anyone can join, you don't need to be affiliated with any university or research institute. And it is really worth it - there are always interesting articles in the newsletter, and the ATN regularly sees the first (or even the first and only) publication of a smaller textile find, or a preliminary results note about a work in progress. Subscribing is easily done via the secure webshop of ATN, and it's not expensive either - the one-year membership costs 20 Euro.


Oh, and of course you are welcome to spread the word...
 

I'm back home after NESAT and then a nice, full extra day to let the conference sort of end slowly instead of rushing home from the middle of things. It was exhilarating, with all the familiar faces to see again, and we enjoyed wonderful, mindboggling and really awesome papers. There was delicious conference food, enough coffee, a really tempting book table (some of the books magically found their way into my bag), there were even non-alcoholic cocktails and layer cakes! And a delightfully large amount of free time in the evenings to mingle and hang out together.

And like any good and proper conference, it was really exhausting. One week of speaking at least one foreign language a lot for most of us, in-depth discussions, science lingo and textile lingo and chemical formulas and isotope numbers, plus too little sleep - that's enough to wear a person out. So... more on NESAT during the next few days!

It's always planning time.

And I'm thinking and planning about extending my range of wares a bit more, maybe for the next summer season. Yes, I know it's early, but those things can take a good amount of time.
One of the things that I am thinking about to include is a niddy-noddy (or stick reel) after historical evidence. I have looked at the tools linked on Larsdatter, and I have a few more things in my bookshelf, but I haven't decided on one yet.

I'd like to offer a niddy-noddy that is in keeping with the sources (best would be a completely surviving one) and not too large - the Oseberg find is quite big, and I'd much prefer a smaller one. In addition, I am very happy to hear about your experiences with niddy-noddies or other stick reel variations to make sure that it's not only historically correct as far as possible, but also get the functional details right, and that I choose a model for the reproductions that will also suit a modern buyer.

So... gentle readers, what do you expect from a reeling tool? Do you happen to know of a find of a complete one (except the obvious Oseberg one)? Would you buy a reconstructed medieval niddy-noddy? And how much would you be budgeting for it? Or rather spend money on some other textile tool - like an embroidery frame, or a distaff?

I'm being very lazy today, and I'll just point you to a very interesting article over on the Abby's Yarns blog about the debate whether the hand spindle or the spinning wheel is the better tool for spinning.

Abby comes from the Andes, and she learned how to use a low-whorl hand spindle for production spinning. Do read her article - it's  a really, really good one.