I have a disgustingly large number of unsorted images, and while I also have a goal of doing a little bit about that regularly (though not daily), it's still a disgustingly large number. I can't even say if it does get better, as there's the occasional influx of images... but the last few days, I think I did have less incoming pictures than those getting sorted.

Among them that were sorted was this one: 

...and yes, that's exactly what I could use now. Not getting my own ears massaged (I think feline ears are much better suited for that), but hanging somewhere, chilling. There was bits and bobs of this and that getting done today, that kind of work day where in the end you feel like nothing has happenend though there was something to do all the time.

Fortunately the weekend is almost upon us, and I am looking forward to that. I hope you'll have a nice one too!

After a few logistical issues that had to be solved, I'm absolutely thrilled that we finally have a date, place, and focus topic for the ETF 2024. Hooray! We will indeed be in Mayen again, and it will run from November 4 to November 10. Our focus topic will be "Edges and Embroidery".

The European Textile Forum started in 2009, and from the start on, it was intended to connect practical and theoretical aspects of textile research. There've also been quite a few archaeological experiments throughout the years - and I'm already looking forward to find out what we will be up to this year in November!

You can find out more about our Forum 2024 on the Call for Papers page, and you can register for the Forum week here.

And now I'll go and celebrate a little more that things have been solved, and the Forum will happen in November!

The Early Textiles Study Group conference this year is taking place in Cambridge, Britain - or you can join in virtually online. Registrations for both kinds of attendance is now open, and you can have a look at the preliminary programme on their website, too.

 Edges are definitely a very interesting topic!

... it will be a weird week when somehow Monday feels like Friday already. So even though I technically know it's Tuesday today, it feels like Friday-which-should-already-have-been-yesterday. So it should be Saturday today, but since it was a false Friday yesterday, it only shifted one day.

I wonder how the rest of the week will be like if it starts like that? Time will tell. For now, though, everything might be better with a cat picture: 

At least it will not be worse!  

Unless, that is, the sleepiness is contagious via computer screens...

Sometimes, things take a lot longer than one thinks possible.

Case in point? Well... I've been looking for a blacksmith willing to make shears for me for ages. Probably best if I don't try and find out exactly how long! It's been more than a decade for sure though. 

A lot of people were interested at first, but then it never worked out - most of the time, I was just ghosted. However, I have finally found somebody to make them for me, which means that they are now available in the shop.

They are small, like many of the originals were, with about 13.5 cm length - and they will cut fabrics very well. I've tried all of them on different kinds (linen, wool, and silk), and they did manage all of them fine. 

And now we will see if other people are as over the moon about these as I am... I find it hard to believe still that they are now really here!

One of the main things on my desk at the moment is work on the Madder Baselines experiment - at least a bit of a preliminary write-up has to be done, and, well, I am more and more convinced the stuff is called madder because it makes me... the same.

Also, there's such a huge difference between looking at colours on the fabrics in real life and in daylight, and in looking at them on a photograph on the screen. Print will probably be different again, too, but for now, I'm frustrated enough by not getting nearly as much of a difference on the pictures than they show when yo look at the objects.

On that image, four should be very similar to each other, and the other two quite different from the group, with some difference between them as well. That's one of the better images actually, where it's relatively easy to distinguish at least on my screen. The others... ah well.

There's also quite a stack of results (dye-wise) that I'm not sure how to make sense of. Samples that should be exactly the same colour are sometimes (almost) the same, sometimes not. The samples from the pots running in parallel are quite well-matched to each other, the samples from a second run with the same ingredients don't match those of the first run.

As I said - quite surely, madder comes from crazy!

At least it's a pretty red. Or some of them. Mostly.

In case you're prone to procrastination, there's an article in Nature that might be interesting for you - it is about the influence of one's outlook (optimistic or not so optimistic) on whether procrastination is more of an issue or not.  

Me, I'm not going to procrastinate right now by reading that article. The Little Cat needs to have her food supply stocked up, so that is on the list of errands to run today. Because we can't risk the furry thing going hungry, right?

(And that also means that should I need something tomorrow to do instead of some task I'm really not so keen on doing... I still have the paper. Muahahaha.)