I'm off travelling to Lübeck, this time with a little more free time to spend in that lovely little city. With me, of course, the big red suitcase (as usual when travelling for workshop purposes) and the indispensable travel companions.

Those are, in the back: a stainless steel water bottle and my battered trusty coffee travel mug. They serve, obviously, to hydrate me during any gallivantings through the countryside.

The jungle flowery thing in front is my travel cutlery in its little bag (and yes, that is a re-purposed folding umbrella cover that I found on the street - a souvenir from one of my England travels before Brexit happened). It holds a small and large spoon (both from wood) and a fork and knife (titanium, because it's cool and lightweight, and that set of cutlery is also my cutlery when we go biking or hiking.) The bag also contains a mini-salt shaker. 

Then there's a silicone pouch - packs small, is completely watertight and thus can carry soup if necessary. Usually it carries the leftovers from restaurant meals that I get, because these days I rarely finish a full portion. A lot of places offer a "small" option these days, but I prefer getting the regular-sized one and having two meals for the price of one. With the pouch, I can be sure that my food is packed up safely, nothing will spill out, I'll enjoy the rest of it the next day and it's not making extra waste because I do not need to ask for a to-go box or other packing material in the restaurant.

And finally, hiding out in the back... that is a travel-sized immersion heater (hence the pouch, which is the original probably vinyl one). I got that on a flea market, they've gotten out of style here. Water kettles have taken over here in Germany as the standard for boiling water many, many years ago already, but I remember that an immersion heater was what we used at home when I was a child. 

This one is actually a larger travel-sized one, and I have an even smaller one for when space is tight, sized to hang on the rim of a regular-sized mug. The heater, accompanied by a few bags of herbal tea, is my guarantee that if I need a cuppa in the evening to wind down, I can. Here in Germany, some rooms in hotels or other accommodations will have the complimentary tea-making facilities, but many don't. Some days I don't need the wind-down tea, but sometimes I do, and then it's just nice to know that I can, whatever happens. (Going into the restaurant or guest room or bar would be a possibility to get a cup of tea, but when I need the tea to wind down, I want to have a closed door between me and other people and no human interaction whatsoever. Which would not be the case in a restaurant, obviously.)

The second, just as important potential use of the water heater? Sometimes I have the cold feet problem. The literal one - my feet, before or when going into bed, are so cold that they will not warm up on their own. That means I'll have trouble falling asleep, will not sleep well, and will wake up in the morning with feet that are just as cold as when I got into bed, and it's not fun and no good thing. 

Entering the scene to rescue the night: the water heater (because tap water might be hot enough, but then it might not) and the steel water bottle. Tada - instant hot water bottle for bed. In theory, I could wrap the hot bottle in a towel to avoid burns on the feet, but I just keep my distance and pay attention. 

Added benefit: If there was sliced ginger in the water bottle before for a bit of flavour, you have nice tangy cold ginger tea in the morning. (I do not recommend leaving lemon slices in, as the rinds will make it bitter.)

A colleague sent me the link to this video a while ago, and now I'm finally remembering to share it with you. It's a fantastic use of textiles, and an equally fantastic example of continuing traditions, and, well, see for yourselves: 

I'm not entirely sure if there's a lot of weaving involved - there's definitely cording, twisting, braiding and knotting, though.  

It's one thing done, the next thing in prep - I've just finished sorting and putting away all the tools and extra bits and bobs that went with me to the tablet weaving workshop. Apart from those bits and bobs of the collection that are going to travel to Lübeck with me!

The loops for the braiding workshop are all cut, knotted, and bundled together for the different braids; there's material to anchor them, there's extra yarn and my trusty measuring and loop-making tool, there's scissors and loops and all that remains is to print out the things that have to be printed out, and to pick and pack some of the sample bands so people can get an idea of what is possible with loop braiding. Like in all my workshops, I try to teach "understanding the structure" as opposed to "follow this set of instructions blindly to get result A, and this set of instructions to get result B". So we start with five loops, and every loop in a different colour - this makes later analysis easier, as you can follow each of the colours through the band. Or bands, depending if you are braiding one or two at the same time.

The biggest part of the equipment are the clamps I use to anchor the braids - but fortunately, the trusty suitcase has no problem to fit them, and it rolls so well that it's also no trouble to push or pull it around. Only staircases are not my most favourite thing in the world when I'm travelling with workshop equipment... makes you keenly aware of what people with reduced mobility have to face every day. 

I'm already looking forward to Lübeck on Saturday and Sunday!

The Hansemuseum Lübeck is up to great things - the first one in line: A conference about "Interwoven Societies", starting tomorrow.

For those of you interested in the conference, but unable to get to Lübeck for it, there's fantastic news: It will be streamed live on the EuroWeb YouTube channel! The conference programme is available here, it looks very interesting, and I'm looking forward to tuning in there tomorrow.

And then there's even more! 

The FGHO is celebrating their 30 year anniversary, and for that there's guided tours on Saturday - one of them including me. You can book your spot here on the museum website.

Finally, on Sunday I'll be giving a loopbraiding workshop. There's also still a few spaces left - you can join in!

I'm back from the weekend weaving workshop - which was (as these things tend to be) an enormous amount of fun, both for me and (according to their comments) the participants.

There was a lot of weaving done - quickly making centimeters on the bands on the first day. My weaving workshops always start with the very basics: Getting the hang of what different threading directions do, weaving stripes, the absolute basic principles on how patterns work. Then we do a little bit of doubleface to warm up, and then the fun starts.

That also means that the second is was devoted to more thinking and more looking at tablets, and more sorting things around, which slows down the weaving process. Let's say that it can be surprisingly hard to weave a simple monochrome surface... but all of my weavers did very, very well, and went away with a band and a learning curve that they can really be very proud of.

And I actually remembered to take a few photos! Though most of them are on a different camera than this very, very blurry one that I snapped with my phone, and have not transferred yet:

I did not promise twill in the workshop description, on purpose, but I usually get signals very quickly if the group, more or less, would like to try it. (They usually do.) And if that's the case, I try to get things arranged so everyone who wants to can get a little bit of the twill experience. 

That was also the case on the weekend, and we did manage to progress into twill weaving for the last part, to my great pleasure and to the great spinning of heads (in German you say "rauchende Köpfe", as in the brain is working so hard that smoke curls up from the head) on the weavers' side. 

I love weaving twill on tablets, and I really love teaching it. Twill is hard, though. You have to keep track of a lot of things simultaneously, and there's a stack of tablets that needs to be handled delicately and correctly, so some of your capacity is already taken up by the fine motor skills demands, and then (if you've done tablet weaving beforehand) there are things you always did differently and you have to do my way now (because of reasons, not because I like to pester people) so that eats even more of your brain or (if you haven't done tablet weaving beforehand) there are so many new movements that it's also eating up brain capacity, and that together means that it is getting hard to count to two.

There is concentrated deep silence during most of the time when I'm running a tablet weaving workshop. I have actually tried it once, where there was no carpet on the floor, and yes, you could hear the pin drop. That concentrated silence is even more obvious if twill is requested by the participants, though then you sometimes hear sighs, quiet mumblings (to keep track of the sequence in which things should be done) or, if something has gone properly wrong, a little cry for help or assistance.

As is also usual, only a part of the group went on to venture a little deeper into twill after the first bit of it. Twill weaving is not for everyone - you have to like this kind of brain-bending mental gymnastics, and some people do, and some people don't, and that is absolutely okay. The system I use is all logical throughout, and there's a stack of rules and little hacks and standard procedures that really help, but the challenge in the workshop is that you have to remember all of them at the same time, and a weekend workshop always means that there is limited time to let each new standard really settle into the brain and the hands.

I'd really like to try and teach tablet weaving for a full week some time, and see what could be done with a bit more practise before progressing to the next steps... but that would probably have to be at some weaving school or special event. Who knows, though - there's been so many interesting things and projects and jobs in the past that I'd never have dreamt of, the opportunity might arise at some place and some time.

For now, I have some notes to review, and some bits of my workshop script to tweak, a few little changes to make for the next workshop, and then I'll be waiting for the next opportunity to make some brain cells work very, very hard... 

Just before the presentation in Syke, there was an interview for the NDR (that is the Northern German Radio/TV), which is also online now. You can find it here - again all in German, of course. 

If you happen to be in London in the next months, you might consider going to see an exhibition about Kumihimo in the Japan House London. It will run until June, so there's still some time left. For those who want to get in the mood, or cannot make it but would still like to hear more about kumihimo, there is a recorded talk about the exhibition on the website as well. 

And just in case you'd prefer going for a nap, but have a hard time falling asleep: There's a Boring Books for Bed podcast. Though I'm not absolutely sure I agree with the title "boring" for something about embroidery. You can also listen to things about Egyptian Archaeology. Or Darwin's Origin of Species...

It's said that having a positive outlook on life is a good thing... and I agree. I know a few people who have a tendency to having a negative outlook on things in general, and get the feeling easily and quickly that everything is against them, or wanting them to suffer, or something in that direction - and it does sound like bad things happen to them more often than to others, and that they have bad luck more often as well. 

Though of course, staying upbeat and positive and optimistic? Sometimes, that's hard to do. For instance, Tuesday this week was rather shitty - literally, in part. The poor little cat had constipation, and it was so bad that she obviously was in great pain and distress. 

The reason for that was a change in her food, which, in turn, is due to her having problems that point to an allergy or a sensitivity to something in her food, including food that she'd been eating without issues for years. Possibly age has increased these sensitivities. Now the hard thing is to find out what is causing that. Current hypothesis is that it's binding agents, which are added to almost all canned cat foods, and which do not need to be declared on the can. That, in turn, means the only way to find out about them is to ask directly at the manufacturer's.

As we've also found that she is sensitive to a number of meats - including beef, which is the main ingredient in most ready-made cat foods, and chicken, which runs a close second - the amount of ready-to-buy foods without binding agents and suitable for her, especially to find out if it is the binding agents, runs very close to zero. There's some few ones, but they are most often in tiny cans, we have a large cat, and I refuse to buy so much packaging, as it would mean several cans per day. (The cat is already the largest producer of waste in form of packages in our household. By far!)

So we switched to raw food, which gives us complete control over what she has, but the change led to the really, really bad constipation. The vet visit solved that, and it actually overshot the goal a little, so we had to deal with some more shit than expected, in places where it was not completely welcome... I will leave the rest to your imagination, or better not. (Overall not too bad. Things are mostly clean again, and the last things to wash lined up for their go. We will cope.)

In addition, I got some news on that same day that were not too delightful as well. Nothing really superdrastic, but somewhere between annoying and troublesome.

In all of that, I did try to see the positive aspects. I was very, very fortunate to get an appointment at the vet straight that afternoon, without having to wait for ages in the waiting room as an unplanned emergency (somebody else had cancelled last minute, and I could slip in). I got an offer for help for one of the bad-news-issues, which made no sense as it would have caused an inordinate amount of effort on the offering party's side, but it was still heart-warming to hear that someone would go to these lengths for me, without a second thought. 

It will pass, I told myself. It will get better soon again. Just keep at it... you'll manage. Also huge luck with the vet appointment. Cat getting better. Everything going to be alright.

And yes, it did. The day after, the cat was getting better; she's almost back to normal now, and has successfully used the litter box with no visible issues. (Whew. Never knew you could be so delighted about cat shit.) There's been a few emails with better news, including one that turned the troublesome issue (late delivery of my medication) into a resolved problem (chances are very high it will arrive in time after all). Plus there were a few other things that are very to utterly delightful in the mail yesterday and today morning.

So I'm pretty happy today, and it feels like it was a very good thing to try and stay positive and not give up and see everything as bleak and horrible and awful. And yes, I know that this can be hard, and sometimes straight out impossible. Before I got on the HRT and my hormones were so far out of whack, dropping a pencil could ruin half the day at minimum, and though it was better than nothing, no amount of trying to be positive would put it into proper perspective. But it's always worth the try to stay as much of an optimist as you can!

(If you read German, there's an interesting article here about how a positive mindset and feeling like someone lucky will make it more probable that good things happen to you.)