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Katrin Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
Yes, that would sort of fit that aspect - but you can also go from bits of woods to sticks if you ar...
Bruce Hieroglyphs.
23. Februar 2024
I think the closest English equivalent would be 'Down the rabbit hole'. It has one entrance (No, not...
Harma Spring is Coming.
20. Februar 2024
I'm definitely jealous! Mine disapeared except for one pathetic little flower. But the first daffodi...
Gudrun Rallies All Over Germany.
23. Januar 2024
Vielen Dank für den Beitrag. Ja, wir müssen darüber reden, gegen das Vergessen. Zum Glück haben mein...
Anne Decker Aargh.
17. Januar 2024
This is less likely to have an effect on your personal samples as you likely wrap the same way for a...
SEP.
20
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Patch this up?

There's a fairly new digital museum around - the Digital Museum of Dress Accessories. As their first exhibition room, they are hosting a gallery about patch boxes (and, consequently, about patches) - a custom that came up in the 17th century.

If that sounds interesting to you, go head over to the DMDA website and have a virtual stroll through their gallery. I certainly found it interesting, even though it's way past the time I'm usually working on. 

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MAI
10
0

"Making, Wearing, Displaying: Textiles and the Body"

I'm back home from a wonderful workshop - and the title "Making, Wearing, Displaying: Textiles and the Body" really fit all the contents of the workshop.

We had a lovely mixture of papers and practical sessions, one of them involving modeling of various reconstructions of old garments. There was Iron Age and Bronze Age things, there were a few galloroman garments, and pieces from Xianjing - of which I got to model one. It was the earliest piece, put together from a lot of fabric that was mostly uncut, and a very interesting experience to wear. The two other garments from the same project were much more tailored and looked elegant from the get-go, while my gown felt more like hanging out on the couch and have chocolate and watch Netflix. (Or read a book, maybe.) While I've worn a good number of historical garments and garment reconstruction over the years, and most of them not just for half an hour or an hour, but for actual working and living in them, it was the first time I had something as loose-fitting and flowy, with no body shaping whatsoever. Very curious feeling for me.

There was also a workshop on Greek dancing (ancient Greek, of course), in the wonderfully warm sun, so it felt quite fitting. And then, of course, lots of papers about a huge number of aspects regarding textile and the body - from dental abrasions probably caused by textile work to a project looking at brain activity when doing textile work. The programme was really long and packed, but the organisers did an absolutely splendid job in how they arranged papers, breaks, and practical sessions to make it still easy to follow along and take in all the information.

We also got treated to a tour of the Ethnographical Museum in Lisboa, who graciously hosted us for the first two days, and to copious amounts of typical food and sweets (coffee breaks!) plus, of course, coffee.

Portuguese coffee is lovely, and I probably had too much of it - but did I mention it was delicious? 

After the conference, I had a bit of time left to explore the city. I spent most of the two days I had walking up and down the streets, looking at things at a flea market, seeing the loom weights (and the museum mascot cat) in the Museo Archqueologico do Carmo, plus the Natural Science Museum and the Botanical Gardens as well as many, many streets in different quarters. There would have been much more to explore, but there's only so much you can do in two days, especially if you also have to take breaks to sample the local delicacies. There had to be an adequate sample size for determining coffee quality, for instance, and since there is not only the signature "pastel de nata", but a plethora of sweet baked goods in Portugal, these had to be sampled too. 

Finally there were visits to a few supermarkets, because I always find it very interesting to see how goods differ from country to country, and on Sunday I spent some time doing what a lot of the locals did: Hang out in one of the parks, sitting on the grass and enjoying the day (in my case, with a bit of knitting). 

And then it was already time to go home... with a few delays along the way, which meant I arrived a bit later than planned, but not castastrophically late. Now it's time to get back to work - with new insights about displaying dress and the body. 

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MäRZ
13
0

Festivities and a glorious weekend.

It was, let me tell you, an absolutely and utterly glorious weekend that I had in Lübeck. OUr train there was actually on time, and we had the afternoon to spend in the city, looking at the curious little spaces filled with small houses in the former backyards of larger houses. We also had a look at the ships in the museum harbour, at the beautiful cathedral St. Mary, and at a tea exhibition and medieval artworks in St. Annen. 

Then there was delicious cake and coffee, to get us a little warmed up again after being outside for a while. The weather was half not-so-nice and cold, half sunny-but-windy-and-quite-cold, so both Friday and Saturday morning saw us pretty frozen after a while, and on Saturday noon my fingers felt really frozen, so much that a fresh cup of tea was not enough to fully warm them up again.

And then, on Saturday... festivities! First me and Kathrin Hüing from the Hansemuseum did our workshop/guided tours through the Guter Stoff exhibition, then there was a little "danse macabre" show performed by the Hansevolk zu Lübeck, and the evening was spent with celebration of the 30th birthday of the FGHO. That meant meeting and chatting with lovely people, with delicious finger food and drinks. It was the first party of that kind for me in a long, long while, and it was absolutely wonderful.

I also had time in the museum this visit to play around with some of the interactive bits in the special exhibition. My favourite one? Emboss your own "cloth seal". It's not a real cloth seal, of course - but you can, as a souvenir, emboss a silvery carton roundel with one of three different designs. One of them is the sheep "Locke", who also leads children through the special exhibition. It's probably not hard to guess which one is my favourite of the three...

... and the embossed Locke is the perfect thing to personalise my laptop.

Much, much nicer than the manufacturer's seal on the laptop cover! This delights me no end. 

Also delightful: There is a cloth measuring tape, especially made for "Guter Stoff", with medieval fabric design on one side and the measuring tape on the other side. And yes, I am now the proud owner of one of them. You can get them in the museum shop in the main house of the EHM in Lübeck. And the really good news is that you have until October to do so - the exhibition has been extended! 


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MäRZ
07
0

EuroWeb Conference in Lübeck Tomorrow!

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!

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FEB.
06
0

Guilds and Crafts

The Germanisches Nationalmuseum has what they call a "digital story" about guilds and crafts in the Early Modern Age on their website. I'd have called it something like a digital exhibition, as there's a good number of topics to explore and quite a few nice images of artefacts, but whatever the name, it's worth a look.

You can find the English version "Guild and Crafts" here, and of course there's also a German version "Zunft und Handwerk".

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AUG.
23
2

Home Again!

I'm home again after the absolutely wonderful weekend at the Archäotechnica. It was lovely to have a museum event again after such a long pause due to the pandemic. I got to meet old friends and get to know new people, and realised how much I missed all this.

My work space was in the cloister, where I had very good light, but not too much of it - at least most of the time; on Sunday around noon, I had a bit of direct sun, and it was very hot and very bright and hard to see what I was doing.

I also realised that I have a very, very hard time stitching and speaking at the same time. So even though there were very few and very short breaks only, the amount of stitching that got done was... well, let's say that there was no danger at all that I'd run out of embroidery work.

The gold in the picture is the result at the end of 7 hours of demonstration time - not at all to be confused as the result of 7 hours of embroidery time! 

A demo situation is always different from a proper work situation, even if the technique you demonstrate is one that needs very little attention. Your main focus, as a good demonstrator, will always be on the people coming and asking questions, or watching, and not on your work piece. So you stop things to explain, you work slower if necessary, you demonstrate mistakes or point out possible problems (in some cases making them happen on purpose), and your main aim is explaining things and not having a perfect piece at the end. (The gold embroidery quality is also not what I'd reasonably expect from myself as the result of a normal stitching session.)

Even when I'm doing a very low-demand technique such as combing wool, or spinning, I can feel a difference in how the work goes that I'm doing on a demo as opposed to doing it as work. (It's fascinating, really.) In my experience, there's techniques and things that need little or no brain, and little or no attention, and they are best suited for demonstration purposes. With these techniques, I can look at the people passing by, make eye contact, and talk to them without interrupting the work. Spinning would be one of these; netting also works very well in my experience. 

Techniques that need no brain, but focus on the work and attention are the other group of techniques where a demo is possible. These, which include anything involving stitching, are more difficult - as soon as you look like you are concentrating on something, quite a lot of people have qualms to ask something. I've had a lot of "may I ask you something" questions this weekend, and I am actually considering putting up a sign next time that says some thing like "do ask me things, that's what I am here for". I do try to stop and look up at my surroundings when I am demo-ing a high-focus technique, but it takes more effort from my end to demo this successfully and with similar amounts of interaction than a low-focus technique. 

The third group are techniques that need attention and focus as well as brain power. These are right out for demo purposes in my opinion. I just cannot give a proper impression of how something demanding is done and concentrate on getting the hows and whys across to visitors at the same time. So I'd never do a demo on complicated tablet-woven patterns, for instance. That requires all my attention, and I'd either not talk to people or weave with lots of errors and very badly.

This is also something that I explain to museums and event organisers when we're discussing possibilities for demonstrations. Usually we then find a technique that fits the event and that is suitable for a good demo. After all, a demo of the coolest and most astonishingly complicated technique serves nobody if it's just not working properly for the public.

Have you done demonstrations? Are your experiences similar?

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FEB.
23
1

Bayeux Tapestry - Now Online!

You probably know that - you're looking at some newsfeed or something on the internet, and suddenly something really cool and exciting pops up. That is just what happened to me, leading to my finding out about the Bayeux Tapestry online.

In a project to make the embroidery more accessible and digitally available, the whole 70 metres have been photographed and then pieced together into a large panorama - which is now freely accessible online. So you can have a look at whatever piece you want to, and even zoom in quite a bit. Here's the museum's info and intro page to the Online Tapestry.

I've spent some time already squinting at the stitches in different parts. Of course, I immediately had an Oliver Twist moment when clicking on the zoom-in button, when I would really have liked to have just one more... but didn't get it. Still, it's wonderful, and probably allows a closer look than going to visit the original piece!
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