Back home from Backnang.

I'm back home from Backnang - it was a wonderful weekend, and I'm only sad that there was not more time for me to stroll around outside and enjoy the beautiful weather, or take a more leisurely look at all the stalls with fibres, tools, and (of course!) yarns.

This is where I spent most of my time in Backnang:

- right beside the table of Margit from Alte Künste:

 

I also had the pleasure of teaching medieval spinning to a group of enthusiastic and interested spinners on Friday and Saturday, and on Friday there were even two participants who had their very first experience in spindle-spinning. Both courses were sold out in the blink of an eye, a joy to teach, very well received and I'd be happy to offer them again in Backnang in 2017.

Today, though, my mind will have to get out of the wool-mode - I have to finish reading the typeset proof of our new book this week, and I hope to make very good headway today. There is tea, there is chocolate, there is a red pen - and it's nice weather, perfect to sit in the spring sunshine and reading.

Links for you.

It's time for links again!

Here's one to an ongoing comparison of fingerloop braids, together with instructions for each band, from Silkewerk.

Variations on yarn-overs, from Ysolda's blog. Just in case you want to tweak the size of your yarn-overs to make them exactly the same size.

If you read German and like things that make noise and stink (also known as ancient fireweapons), the page of the Bummsbrigade Hamborch should be just the thing for you. (If you don't read German, they are working on an English version of the page, according to said page, and you could look at the pictures of their stuff, "Zeug", meanwhile.)

Winter!

It's very grey and wintery outside these days, but we still have no snow - as opposed to where my parents live, they've already had some of the white stuff.

It is nice to slowly migrate towards the calmer time of the year, though. While there are still plenty of things left to do hereabouts, there is no more fair or show or market for now, which greatly reduces the urgency of certain things. And that is a very good thing, as I still feel like I could use some more days off to relax and regenerate.

For now, though, having some nice quiet time in the evenings and looking forward to the weekend will have to do. Oh, and motivational hot beverages help as well. Plus chocolate. And the fact that it is pleasant work, overall - even if it is still work.

Just in case you would rather like to learn something new (or old) instead of reading me rambling on about the weather and wanting some holidays, here's a website helping you learn Middle English. Chaucer, anyone?

Or maybe a gratuitous knitting pic? I've succumbed to the lure of all that yarn while at the Kreativ, plus it was cool in the hall - so I just had to cast on for a snuggly triangular scarf/shawl. It's made from one skein of sock wool in the "Jeans" colourway, dyed by Margit from Alte Künste. (Here's the shop link.) I finished it a few days ago, and I've been enjoying its snugglyness ever since.

Pirate Hat offer ends today!

After all these linky posts, it's time to do a "what is happening here" post again.

Yesterday, I finished the current state of a project - sewing basic garments for a new open-air museum, the Freilichtlabor Lauresham - and sent the things on their merry way to their new home. The project is not completely finished yet, but the next part will have to wait until the cloth for tunic and hose have been woven and dyed, which will take at least a few more weeks. I'd have loved for them to have all the clothes in time for the opening on this Sunday, but unfortunately, we were not able to get the cloth issue sorted out in time for that. (This proves again: textile stuff just gobbles up time.)

With this off my back and off my agenda, it is time to turn to the next exciting bits on the to-do list. So today, I'll do my level best to get some more work done on the Textile Forum. Check our website at www.textileforum.org tonight or tomorrow for the preliminary programme. And if you want to join, you can still register for the conference!

Another conference I have to prepare for is Crafting Textiles from the Bronze Age to AD 1600, taking place on October 10 and 11 in London. (This year is the year of travelling to England for me!) I will be giving a presentation about spinning as a historical craft, and I'm looking forward to that conference very, very much already. The programme is full of interesting papers!

Today's the last day of the Free Shipping offer on the Dread Pirate Roberts knitting pattern. If you were planning to get one, today is the day to do it!

LonCon, and Dread Pirate Robert's Favourite Winter Hat

As I already hinted: it was wonderful at LonCon. That was not only my first WorldCon, but also my first convention ever, and I started full speed ahead - with a dealer's table and a one-hour presentation about medieval textile crafts (with examples from London).

I met a lot of wonderful people, and I had the joyful experience of having an hour and a half on the very first evening, giving my presentation. Thanks again to the wonderful organiser of the academic track, Emma England, who made this possible! From the feedback that I got afterwards, it was an enjoyable experience for my audience, and I had a lot of fun too. There was a bit of an "aaargh!" moment at the very beginning, when I found out that all of the six (six!) microphones on the table were live, and fretted over toppling them over with my textile tools. There were a few further "oops" moments during the presentation, when I did my tools and process demonstrations before having clicked on to the cue cards in the presentation slideshow... but all of these were very minor and more something to grin sheepishly about than to really be troubled.

Apart from that first evening of (enjoyable) work, I spent the time after 18:00 hanging out with friends in filk concerts and in the "Fan Village", or at one of the several dances. During the day, I was mostly at our table in the Dealer's Hall, and that was not any less enjoyable, thanks to lovely customers, colleagues and neighbours. Susanne, our trusty and immensely helpful sidekick, hung out with us most of the time, helping to sell and chat - it wouldn't have been possible to enjoy the Con half as much without her. In fact, we had so much fun we decided it would be nice to do this again - surely not at the next WorldCon, because that is in the US, but there are more conventions apart from that one...

I also learned (quickly, hah!) about the Thing with the ribbons. You see, for your con attendance, you get a plastic badge that you hang around your neck. And if you like, you can stick ribbons to the bottom of it, stacking them. If you are really keen on ribbons, you do that until you have a long, scarf-like tail of cloth hanging from your badge. (I just wanted a few. I ended up with eleven.) There were some official ones (such as the bright orange "Dealers" ribbon, or the light blue "Programme Participant" ribbon, or the multi-coloured "First Worldcon" ribbon) marked with the LonCon symbol. Most of them, though, were unofficial and made by fans, and with all kinds of statements on them - such as "I <3 -="" a="" advertising="" and="" back="" because="" bid="" book="" br="" bryan="" citations="" city="" convention.="" coveted="" dead="" did="" doctor="" dog="" during="" evening="" fetch="" few="" film="" for="" four="" future="" get="" go="" his="" host="" hotel="" i="" instantly="" kind="" last="" making="" manage="" me="" my="" of="" on="" one="" or="" out="" party="" really="" ribbons="" room="" s="" saw="" showing="" so="" support="" that="" the="" there="" thing="" three="" to="" totally="" very="" wanted="" was="" were="" worldcons.="">

The Con also saw the debut of the pattern for Dread Pirate Roberts' Favourite Winter Hat (ravelry pattern page link here), and it was very well received indeed!

The pattern is printed in colour, contains clear illustrated instructions for the special moves that are necessary for the lace part, and is now available via my webshop. Since I wanted to be able to sell it as a printed version, and prints do cost money, I am not planning to offer it as a download for at least a while (read: until the printing costs are, at least to a good part, regained). I know that it's nice to pay, download, and start right away if you buy an electronic pattern, but I did want very much to have the real ink-on-paper version for this one.

And as the introductory offer, you will pay no shipping costs if you order it now! The offer is valid until September 10, 2014.

LonCon, we're coming!

Here's the more-or-lesss promised short break in the blog hiatus...

I've had a very busy few days, finishing the preparations for LonCon - writing lists, preparing goods, packing up stuff, and playing with Powerpoint - and I will start traveling into the rough direction of London tomorrow.

In case you are visiting LonCon, or plan to, or need another excuse to go there, I will be at table F16 in the Dealer's Hall together with Margit from Ancient Arts.

In addition to that, I am part of the programme and will be giving a presentation belonging to the Academic Track, a conference about Diversity in Science Fiction and Fantasy. I've been granted a special session for this - and it will include a spinning technique demonstration, among other fun things to see and learn about textile techniques. Sounds interesting? I will be in the Capital Suite 6 (Level 3), 8pm - 9:30pm, and the presentation title is Spin A Yarn, Add a Twist, Weave A Tale: Textile Crafts in Medieval London.

The pattern for Dread Pirate Roberts' Favourite Winter Hat has also been finished and printed in time for LonCon, and it will have its release there. I'm very, very happy with it!
The pattern is printed in colour, contains clear illustrated instructions for the special moves that are necessary for the lace part, and is exactly 13 pages long - very fitting for a pirate-y knitting pattern. After I return from LonCon, it will also be available via my webshop and Ravelry.

If you are at LonCon, please drop by and say hello - I'd love to see you there!

Unsorted links, and stuff.

Want to see the oldest bottle of wine? You find it here.

If you are rather looking for about 1.5 kg of chocolate turned into an anatomically correct replica of a human skull, look no further.

Speaking of skulls, Dread Pirate Roberts' Favourite Winter Hat is currently being test-knit by a group of lovely folks over at Ravelry. I hope to have it available as a pattern soon - and will take it to LonCon, too.

Other not so nice news regarding SFF: Marion Zimmer Bradley had a dark side, protecting her child-abusing husband as well as molesting herself. Jim C. Hines has a blog post about this, with further links.

Finally... the hat.

Here is, finally, the thing I've been working on, knitting-wise. I call it "Dread Pirate Roberts' Favourite Winter Hat", because, well, you know... pirates can have cold ears too.

There you go. A pirate hat. And here's a closeup of the Jolly Roger motif:

The hat is knit from the crown downwards, so there's no need for doing a gauge test. I recommend knitting with smaller needles than recommended on the ball bands, however, to get a fairly dense structure or else the Jolly Roger won't come out so well. Wool, for its blocking malleability, is also a firm recommendation.

There are quite a few special moves involved in knitting this, including an unusual decrease, some cabling, some creative stuff with elongated stitches, and the lace (yes, technically, it's a lace-esque structure) that makes the skull. Pirate knitters are known to be fearless, though, so it should not be a problem. Right, matey?

I will be writing up the pattern tomorrow - and then, then I will be looking for someone to test-knit it. If you'd like to do that, let me know in the comments or send me an email!

It's almost finished.

Remember, a good while ago, that I was writing about a knitting project? The prototype is almost finished, and I'm planning to go and sit down with it in a few minutes and finish it up (which is mostly a bit of tweaking and darning in all the remaining ends).

As so many other things, it has taken longer than I had hoped (and planned) for it to take - other stuff happened inbetween, and the little hat got shunted to the back a few times. But now the end is nigh! Rejoice! And I promise to try really hard to get you a good photo of it tomorrow (it might be a little tricky to take a picture of it...)

Monday!

Monday! Spring! My nose itches! There are links for you!

First of all, Doug's Blogging Archaeology Carnival has ended, and here is the final post.

Secondly, the Canadian Conservation Institute has Notes and Publications downloadable on their server. The Notes are all free (some of them are a bit older, but should still prove helpful), and the Technical Bulletins are available as a free pdf version once they are 5 years or older.

Thirdly and finally, in case you are looking for something small to knit for an unusual recipient, there's always penguin sweaters.

Uh, Monday? Already?

Seems like the much-needed weekend is over, since my calendar and everything else with a date on tells me it's Monday. Oh well. I shall get to work then, right?

While I finish the last seam on the lady's surcot (getting it into a state where I can mark out hems and neck opening) and cut the middle gores for the tunic (getting this into a similar state, plus some sewing and neatening), you could check out this post about books of remarkable women.

Or you could go over here and read about Eastern Uncrossed knitting and yarn tension.

Me, now, I will go fix myself a coffee... because coffee always helps. Well, almost always, anyways.

Knitty stuff.

The new knitty is out, and while most of the patterns are not what I would utterly want to knit, there's a lure to a blog called Knitting Nuances that sounds really interesting. (In a similar yet different way to TechKnitting, in case you don't know that one yet.) Unluckily for me, I have a purple tunic calling, very loudly, to me from the living room table... which is where I shall speed directly to get some work done.

One day, though, when I have some time again and all the urgent stuff has been dealt with, I will really need to knit a "show-all-the-different-stitches" swatch. You know... increases, decreases, twists, slips, that stuff. I have a pattern swatch with different stitch, hem and seam types for sewing work, and that has been a very helpful explanation and teaching tool, as well as a nice reference. Soon. Soon. (Well. Soon-ish.)

Oh really? Well. If you say so.

During our last crafty evening, there was some need for craft knowledge input - the kind that you'd expect to find in the Encyclopaedia of Needlework. So we turned to that book, the necessary input was more or less gained, and the book stayed on the table for a while.

And a bit later, the most patient husband of them all picked it up and looked into the section on knitting. He read me the very beginning of it... the section starts out telling you that there is nothing more to be developed or invented in knitting, as it's all been done already and we know everything.

(That's the German version - the English just states that it "would be difficult to invent new stitches or patterns", not impossible. Unless "difficult" in the 1880s meant "impossible" in the same way that "selten" in middle high german epics meant "never", though technically it's only "rarely".)

Seeing that my current creative outlet is the invention of such a thing, this was hilarious. And now, having found that the English text is less sure of the impossibility to invent new stitches, I do wonder in which language Ms de Dillmont originally wrote her book.

Also, if you are a sock knitter, check out the different heels and toes she describes for all your sock-knitting needs. There's forms that I have not seen yet - she does not give the shortrow heel, though, or the sweet tomato heel. (But, as you well know, there's nothing new in knitting. No no.)

For the moment, though, I will not turn to socks (especially not cuff-down ones, I prefer the no-maths toe-up approach) but stay with my hat and shawl...

Spring is coming! Lace knitting time!

We've had the nicest weather during the weekend, perfect for sitting in the sun and drinking coffee and knitting. Also perfect, and the right time of the year, for pulling out all the seed packets and getting started on sowing - there shall be tomatoes again this summer, and mini-cucumbers, and chili plants, and also some pumpkins and zucchini.

I've also been hit by a creative bug during the weekend - it all started with the comment of a friend that knitted lace has a tendency to be quite feminine in look. Well. Well... I have worked a bit on the most un-feminine lace I have yet managed to see. It's not quite finished its development, but I'm close, oh so close. (I'm itching to show you pics, but I think I should keep it mum for a little while longer...)

The pattern is begging to be incorporated into a hat pattern that will probably end up slightly weird, due to topological reasons. I hope to have it done and finished in time for LonCon - it would fit in nicely there, and probably delight a few geeky knitters no end.

So hopefully I will be searching for a few adventurous test knitters soon... for now, though, I shall go back to finishing my computer work before the morning runs out.

Spring, and knitting.

The many hours of sewing, it seems, make me want to increase my knitting time as well... and there's two just-for-fun projects on needles, currently: The socks that I sort of blogged about a while ago are almost finished (just a few more rounds before bind-off):

Also, I have started knitting my very first lace scarf... because of the yarn I spun, oh, back in 2011. It had a run-in with an indigo dye vat last Textile Forum, resulting in blue yarn. 595 m (or 571 m, the second time I measured) and weighing 64.9 grams. What do you do with that? I can tell you what I did: I scoured Ravelry's pattern database until I found a shawl pattern that I liked and that uses about this amount of yarn.

I got that pattern as a present for my birthday, and yesterday I couldn't resist any longer (I had planned to wait until the socks were finished) and cast on.

It's the Renaissance Shawl (here's its ravelry page). The designer, smart woman, is giving percentages of yarn left throughout the pattern, so you can see whether your gauge is fine for the amount of yarn you have.

Speaking of Ravelry and patterns and socks, by the way, there are a bunch of really cool socks designed by General Hogbuffer. If you like socks that are not just plain vanilla, check out his design page!

Finally... since the sock yarn I spun gave me so much pleasure, I have this:

which, one day in the medium-far off future, will spend some quality time with my spinning wheel.

So as you can see, there's a lot lined up as fun knitting for the evenings and my breaks!

Things going on here.

Sewing project update: The first buttons are attached to the sleeve of the red dress. I tried to snap a photo this morning, but found that I need either much more light or a tripod and was too lazy to get the latter. It's beautiful, though - the red is an incredibly lovely colour.

There's also a next project lining up for when the current one is finished - including an altar linen, something that is weirdly exciting to do. It's no spectacular work, just a very simple cloth, hemmed and pieced together in the middle, with no embroidery or other special effects, but the altar vestments are such an important part of religious life and thus of medieval culture that it is super-exciting for me to do.

We're also working on finishing up the paper about our dyeing experiments of the last two Textile Forums - one of them is a little late, but I'm (or we) are trying to make up for that with the second one.

For those of you who read German, there's a very interesting article on Archaeologik about how the public (especially that part going on treasure hunts with metal detectors) sees archaeologists. Not nice to read - but important to keep in mind: Sensational stories about treasures shift the impression of the public towards the find, not towards research.

Also in German: the guy behind Tribur is working on reconstructing the carolingian sword-belt-thingie.

Not in German, not medieval, but really cool: Geek Knitting Links and more of the same.

Gratuitous Yarn Pics.

A while ago, I went to a monthly spinning meet-up for the first time. That was fun.

A month later, I went there again... and fell in love with some fibre. It's not that I do not own enough fibre for spinning. (Seeing that I have fibre to sell, that would be sort of weird.) It's also not that I don't have enough spinning projects already, or things and techniques I should (or want to) try out, or improve in. And I also own more than enough sock wool for the next few years worth' of sock knitting, seeing how slowly I knit. (Intermittently, and that is probably mostly to blame. Even if your actual knitting speed is not snail-like but only on the low end of mediocre, leaving a knitting project in a bag for a few months because there just is no leisure for it means that making a pair of socks will take ages.)

That fibre... it sang to me. It was dyed, modern-style, in blues and greens with a dash of teal and a dollop of grey in it, and it looked too, too lovely. Long story short, after a while of considering and getting a snippet of the fibre to test-spin, I caved. I bought the fibre and took it with me to spin it during our post-Christmas time with friends. (They know me. Neither of them did blink an eye when I turned up with my spinning wheel in tow.)

I divided the dyed top into three parts, length-wise, and spun each part in my normal thickness and my normal amount of twist (and that's lots). I plied it up three-ply, feeling very generous with my time and very modern, and came out with almost sock-yarn thickness. (It's about as thick as normal sock yarn if you stretch the normal yarn a little.)

When I was finished, I knit up a little sample... which I then tossed into the washing machine, the normal cycle that we use for our clothes. Twice. It came out a little softer than it had come in, but unchanged in size.

And then I started knitting socks from it.

I am insanely happy with this yarn (even though I could have added more plying twist in a few places, and even though the colours from the three plies don't exactly match up).

The different colours and the mixing of them, however, make for interesting patterning.

And I'm looking forward to the time when both socks will show a share of green and blue...

because at the moment, it looks a bit as if I were knitting one sock each from two different wools.

I don't really mind, though. I am very happy watching my hand-spun wool knit up, and looking forward to having new socks at an unspecified time in the future.

Reading the correct version of instructions... helps.

There are a few never-ending things in my life. The Neverending Spinning Experiment, for instance. Or the Neverending Quest for a Publisher for the English Version of my thesis (though there is some movement on that front recently, I have not given up!)

Now, I'm thinking of adding one more item to the list: the Neverending Skew Socks. Skew is a pattern that was published in Knitty back, oh, about four years ago.

It clicked with me straight away. Now, I'm not a big knitter, and I'm not fast, but I like socks. So I ventured out to knit me a pair of Skew socks... and found, quite quickly, that they do not fit my foot. At all. My instep is way too high for them as written.

However - I wanted those socks. Really badly. So I ripped back and fiddled and thought and measured and math-ed some and then some more, and at last I came up with a method that worked. I knit a pair of socks and placed the instructions to the side - for later use.

Time passed, our vacation came up, and I wanted to take some knitting - something small, half-mindless, and nice. I typed off the pattern and took a ball of sock yarn. I knit and knit... and there was that bit in the pattern where I wondered, huh, that looks a bit weird... but I knit on.

Back home, I found that I had skipped into the wrong line when typing the hand-written pattern into the computer. So I ripped back... both socks (two-at-a-time magic loop). Quite a bit. And I knit that part again... correctly, this time. And progressed into the part that I had had almost finished before.

Then I proceeded into the heel part. I knit a bit, and then some more, and then some more... but not much more before I realised that something was decidedly wrong. I was missing stitches. Not only 6 stitches (as before) - this time, it was twenty of them. Now, 20 stitches at sock gauge... that's a lot. A freaking lot.

I went to look for the missing stitches. Had I skipped a section when copying the pattern? Nope. After a goodly while of checking, I found it... I had written a sequence of pattern lines into my hand-written notes, marked them and smeared something like "This!" at their side... but not crossed out or corrected the old version. The old version that had, you guessed it, 20 fewer stitches. And when copying the notes, I had not looked beyond the valid-looking set of instructions...

So the next step in my Skew journey: Correct my digitised instructions, print them out again, and rip back both socks (again, gah!) to where the mini-gusset increase starts. Sigh. The Neverending Skew Socks. If only they weren't so funny...

This, and that, and do I have enough wool?

I'm still feeling a little swamped by work, though pleasantly so - things are coming up that might mean really interesting projects in the future, there's some progress on the writing front (though there's never, ever as much as I'd like) and I may have figured out a way to find out whether the yarn I have is enough for a knitting project.

Knitting time.

Somehow it seems as if winter (or at least the colder months) are my main knitting time - though judging from the output, you would not suspect that.

On my (small, but existent) pile of unfinished objects lies a pair of socks with shadow-knit cats and an almost finished pinwheel sweater. The socks are millimetering towards being done (inching would be too fast, you see?), but the sweater has been huddled into a heap, abandoned, for oh-so-long now.

I'm still in love with the concept of the pinwheel sweater (you take a round blanket, stick two sleeves in, and wear it), but even though I tried on a friend's version of it, I'm not at all happy with mine. It's knit in bulky yarn which may have been a bad choice, since that makes it really heavy; and in this version, it just does not fall right for me. It doesn't.

So I have decided to frog it. And now I've stumbled across a very nice how-to-fit-a-sweater tutorial that helps with choosing flattering projects. So I'll look for another thing, better suited to my shape and figure, to knit... some of these days, this means, I will sit down and cast on something. (And if I'm good, I will finish the socks first.)