First of all, sorry for the unannounced blog silence yesterday - the 6th of January is a holiday in Germany (and I think in several other countries as well), and I got sucked into that holiday spirit so much that I totally forgot to either tell you on the 5th or holiday-blog on the 6th. (Holiday spirit, in this case, means sleeping a little longer, then working on the still-lots-of-unpacked-stuff-situation, with some cake and some knitting sprinkled in.)

Regarding non-knitting, still-textile news, the homepage of NESAT has been updated - NESAT 11 will take place in 2011 in Esslingen, Germany. There is no more info up yet, though - so it's still suspense time!

In case you do not know NESAT (though if you read this blog, chances are you have heard of it), the name is an acronym for "North European Symposium for Archaeological Textiles". The first conference was very small and took place back in the Eighties, and "North European" has since developed to include most of Europe - not only the North. The conferences take place every three years, in a different place, and include about all the big names and lots of juicy, brand-new archaeological textiles science. The publications are absolutely wonderful, and I have spent delightful hours with each and every one from the series (which is listed here).

Last time was the 10th NESAT conference, and it was the first time that the event was "opened up" and participants not giving a paper were allowed in. Before, it was always just a small circle of people, and there was no public call for papers. I think that taking this conference more public was a brilliant move, and it seems that lots of others thought so too - we were over one hundred conference participants. And I hope that NESAT 11 will be as wonderful, exciting and fun as the last one was (and I'll do my very best to be part of the fun).

The holidays were a welcome opportunity to get some more knitting done, and not only are the blue let's-try-doubleknitting-socks off the needles (and on my feet today), there is something new on the needles.

But from the beginning.
After getting started on the blue socks, I figured out several things about this double knitting thing. Most important was the fact that if you have both threads running over one index finger and knit, it's always the thread near the stitch worked. For the left sock, it's the thread running on the left side of the needle, and for the right sock, it's the thread on the right. For purl stitches, I take the finger to one side of the needle, and provided that I didn't let the threads on the finger cross each other, it is still the thread nearest the stitch worked. This makes purling and thus ribbing (and all the other fun things) very feasible. With a bit of practice, of course.
I also learned that splitting yarn makes things harder.
And that starting a free-style rib pattern at two places at once was too much for me.
That cabling needs more pre-planning than "I'll just try it", because it will draw in the fabric considerably.
That dark-blue wool with simple to no pattern (I think ribbing does not count as a pattern!) makes for a long, boring knit.
That casting off at the cuff might have gone better with a little more preparation (read: with knowing more about casting off very, very loosely or even better, learning the surprisingly stretchy bind-off).
And it took me most of the way up the ribbed (and very short) leg to figure out that marking one sock and its corresponding working thread with a little bit of contrasting thread would make things much, much easier - because detecting a yarn swap after half a round is much less work in undoing than detecting the yarn swap when it becomes obvious by connecting two socks four or five (or more) rows down.

So now I have deliciously soft, worked toe-up ankle socks in dark blue with a little bit of ribbing in the leg. The outside (knit on the inside) is a bit fuzzy, and at some places I have mangled the yarn a little, but they fit my feet, they are warm, and they have been a real learning experience. And I got the bind-off loose enough that the cuff just goes over my heel and high instep.

After this, I had to start on some new socks. To be completely honest, one of the reasons the blue socks are ankle socks is that I really, really wanted to start those new socks with that wildly variegated yarn we had bought for my stash in London.
And there were several free days spent with friends where chatting (or listening) and knitting went gloriously well together. So this is how the new socks look today:


Again, I have learned several things already on these socks, for example: Cuff-down is a really nice way to work, and I might prefer it to toe-up. It's especially easier to try on cuff-down socks than toe-up socks with this method.
I have large calves (I knew that already) and that means that if I skip swatching, cast on, then realise that the circumference is too large for foot and ankle by about six stitches, I can still go on knitting and just decrease on my way down the leg.
Ribbing is actually nice to work in this method, at least 3x3 ribbing is.
Variegated yarns make double-knitting much, much easier (because chances are good that yarn A and yarn B have slightly different or really different colours at the same time).
It's still necessary (or at least a seriously good idea) to mark one sock and the corresponding working thread with a marker loop. (You can see some pink marker thread on one of the yarn tails and on one of the working yarns on the photo.)
Little knotted loops of cotton or other smooth threads make wonderful stitch markers that get into the way of the needles very little to not at all.
I am easily amused, because watching the yarn change colours is fascinating enough for me to not mind long stretches of the same pattern (or non-pattern), at least not too much.
At least simple lace is very much possible in that method (and loads of fun, too), even if I still need some more practice with handling k2togs - yarn-overs are actually very pleasant to work for two socks at once, and if the stitches are not too tight, I can do a ssk without rearranging the stitches from a-b-a-b to a-a-b-b.
This is fun, and I see more socks in the future. Maybe even lace socks. And cabled socks. And whatever else strikes me as totally unavoidable to knit...

Pattern is Kai-Mei from Cookie A's book "Sock Innovation", yarn is a Supersock yarn from Cherry Tree Hill Yarns in colourway Martha's Vineyard.

I'm sorry if you are a non-knitter and/or not interested in all these knitting posts. But the bug has bit me, I fear...

The year 2009 is over, and I hope you all had a wonderful and smooth transit into 2010!

Last year was a year of beginnings and starts into new adventures for me. I made my first steps in the publishing process of the thesis, I joined forces with Sabine for some textile madness projects (including the Textile Forum in Eindhoven), and 2009 also was my first full year in the freelancing venture. I had an exhibition, I went to several conferences and medieval events I had never been to before, I did some research on new things. I planned and ordered things for the market stall, I planned some workshops, and I acquired skill in some new old techniques - like netting, brocading and a bit of goldwork embroidery. Hey, I even learned how to knit!

So looking back, 2009 seems to have been a good year. I say "seems", since a year of Beginnings is just that - fresh starts with no way to guess how each little thing begun will work out over time. And so I am curious to see what opportunities 2010 will bring to go on with each of these things... because ultimately, 2010 will decide just how good 2009 has been.

I hope we all have a wonderful, interesting and successful year. And to all the rest of things in a year one could wish for, I think nobody wishes it better than Neil Gaiman in his New Year Benediction:

 I'm off for the holidays now - meeting with the family and later with friends to start into the New Year. As I'm sure me and you will all be much too busy for blogs during these days, I'll see you in January 2010, on Jan 4, to be exact.

Until then have some wonderful, relaxing and stress-free days with your friends and families!

And if you are curious about which New Year's Eve tradition is most hallowed to me and my friends, you might want to know about the phenomenon that is Dinner for One (which even has a Wikipedia entry telling about its importance) and then watch it.

Best seen on New Year's Eve, along with countless Germans!

There is a German saying that goes "Wenn einer eine Reise tut, dann kann er was erzählen" (roughly translates to "Travels will always provide you with a story to tell"). This is certainly true about travel home from London yesterday, where we spent a few days to relax and take in the Christmas lights.
We traveled to London with the Eurostar, and it was a very pleasant travelling day, with windowgazing, knitting and reading the hours until we arrived in St. Pancras station. The way back, however, was not so smooth: Due to the train failures in the Tunnel, there was no train service yesterday, and according to the updates on the Eurostar website today, we would not have come home until tomorrow at the earliest.
We were alerted to the tunnel problems in time, luckily, and went back home using a plane - and again we had a good measure of luck, since our (evening) plane only ran two-and-a-half hours late, which means we arrived at our home in the small hours. Still, it could have been much, much worse.
It will never cease to amaze me that a metal contraption, made of several tonnes of metal and plastic, can take off into the air by sheer power. But comparing the journey to and from England, I liked the train journey better - and I hope that Eurostar will recover from this fiasco, both reputation- and finances-wise. (And of course I also hope that they will not try to keep their losses smaller by not paying for extra expenses of the travellers who got home by plane or ferry...)

Via the MEDTC-Discuss List, I got this information about a new exhibition catalogue:

Kusch, Claudia ; Patrizia Mignani ; Raffaella Pozzi (eds). :
Redire 1427-2009 : Ritorno alla luce : Il restauro del Farsetto di Pandolfo III Malatesti [Back to the light. The restoration of the doublet of Pandolfo III Malatesta]
Fano, Museo Civico, 2009. 24cm., pbk., 107pp. illus., most in color. (I quaderni del Museo, n. 2, 2009)
Price: $48.95 (Shamansky) also available through Italian bookdealers €22.50.


There's an article (in Italian) with two pictures, one a detail of the garment and one shot of the mummy in the grave. And I really want the book, though it could be a little hard to get it here - I haven't found a German distributor yet. So you are in luck if you are in Italy or in the US!

A few days ago, Bavardess had a very interesting blog entry about "beaver" as synonym for the vagina (something I had never heard before, though I can claim non-native-speakeriness as excuse) and how this word use probably developed from a medieval play on words. She links to a little video showing a girl having a girl day out with a beaver, all as advertisement for a new brand of tampons.

Which finally makes me write this little bit concerning tampons (or other disposable sanitary products) and green living. Tampons have been a sort of revolution and have become a normal part of modern female life in our part of the world. They are sold in all kinds of different sizes, from different manufacturers, each one claiming to be the one and only brand. But they all have one thing in common with each other (and with the disposable pads as well): They mean a huge waste of energy and material. All  the water and energy needed for production, the raw materials - plastic, cellulose, paper - for making and packaging them - the tampon or disposable tab is used and then discarded, and into the landfill they go. Not so good for our planet, actually.

So maybe it is time for the next revolution, yes? Some re-usable, environment-friendly product that can be worn like a tampon, safe, healthy, and durable? If that sounds like a good idea to you, you might want to buy yourself a menstruation cup. They are called something like Mooncup or Divacup, and they are a silicone cup that is inserted much like a tampon, catching the blood securely.  You can read much, much more about them on this livejournal devoted to the menstrual cups, and on lots of other places on the Internet - as always, the search engine of choice is your friend.

If you are a tampon-user, go try one. They are really wonderful and absolutely worth the money - in fact, not buying any disposable products anymore will save you more than a cup cost very soon. Or maybe it's even a gift idea for the holiday that's almost upon us?