a stitch in time

Here you go - things of interest.

2012-01-27T08:17:00.000+01:00

As promised yesterday, here are a few things that might be of interest.

First of all, there's a blog out there with (among other things) a collection of 60 pdf files with papers or articles on experimental archaeology. Go visit http://experimentalarchaeology.wordpress.com/papers/ if you are curious now - and enjoy!

And there's more nice stuff on the net. Quite recently, the Historisch Centrum Overijssel has made all the back issues of the Textielhistorische Bijdragen available online. This is lovely! Even more lovely is that Isis of Medieval Silkwork has made a selection of all the articles of interest for the late medieval and early modern period, with links. And if you don't know her blog yet, this is a good opportunity to check it out as well.

And another article has gone online: Fragmenter av kvinnedrakter fra vikingtiden –Metode for identifikassjon av gamle tekstilfunn. This is a Norwegian article with a short English summary, available via Bergen University as pdf file. The paper is about textiles from three Viking Age graves owned by Bergen Museum. They were analysed and evaluated using reconstructed micro-stratigraphy (reconstructed because the textiles had been separated from the metal objects in the past).

In more personal news, the collection of addresses of people interested in getting my book in English has started out extremely well, and I am very happy about all the feedback I have gotten both in emails and comments here on the blog. Thank you all very much for your support, and please keep spreading the word by email, facebook, twitter, your blog, forums you frequent - I would love to have a truly impressive list when I check back with the publishing house in two weeks.

Backlog, anyone?

2012-01-26T10:13:00.000+01:00

There's quite a backlog of things-of-interest that has accumulated, both in my browser tabs and in my email inbox. And I am going to start blogging them... tomorrow.

Because today I have to post this:

If you enjoy a) organic food, b) good and funny movies, c) Star Wars parodies, d) parodies of all kind, or - the best - a jumble of that all... make sure you watch it.

And tomorrow... interesting and really usefull stuff.

Oh no, not again!

2012-01-25T09:57:00.000+01:00

After SOPA and PIPA have been shot down due to protests, I have now found that there is something very like it in the making. Here, in Europe, lots of countries already have signed an agreement called ACTA - an agreement that had been discussed behind closed doors.

And what is even worse? There is not much time left to protest against this - it's supposed to be signed in the EU parliament "early in 2012". Which is... about now.

You can read more about ACTA and learn what can be done to do it here. In Poland and Austria, people have protested against it during the last days. I hope we can still stop it. Please do your part - spread the word, join protests, or call an EU parliament member. The Internet must stay free.

Rags and Riches - Call for Papers

2012-01-24T08:23:00.000+01:00

As requested in the call for papers, I am spreading the word about the conference "Rags and Riches".

It is a one day interdisciplinary conference "Rags and Riches: dress and dress accessories in social context", to be held at the University of Reading on the 21st April 2012. This conference aims to bring together archaeologists, anthropologists, historians and others from related disciplines to discuss current issues of methodology, theory and interpretation of dress and dress accessories, from prehistory to the present day.

Details about the call for papers can be found at http://www.reading.ac.uk/archaeology/Events/arch-rags-and-riches-conference.aspx. The deadline for submissions is the 17th February 2012.

Announcements will be posted at the web address above, but we can also found on facebook (https://www.facebook.com/events/212400145506326/) and twitter (@riches_and_rags).

It does sound nice, but I won't be able to justify going to England for a one-day conference...but if any of you end up going, I'd love to hear about it!

It's not perfect.

2012-01-23T10:05:00.000+01:00

Year before last around Christmas, I posted a link to a christmassy song video called "White Wine in the Sun".

Recently, I have really discovered the artist who did that song: it's Tim Minchin, and he is seriously weird and a really good musician. And since I do know the feeling that you're the smallest doll in a Babushka doll... here's Tim Minchin's song It's Not Perfect. I hope you enjoy it like I did!

More about the Book in English.

2012-01-20T10:21:00.000+01:00

First of all, to all of you who have signed on to the infoletter, or passed on the information and the link: Thank you! I am really, really happy to get this much response and support on my quest for numbers. A lot of time and effort went into writing the thesis, and it feels enormously good to see that other people are interested in this work, and willing to pay for a book about it.

Also my thanks to you who left comments with suggestions about the publishing procedure and alternatives.

Should you be interested in the German version, this is available through all the usual ways to get hold of a German book - either from a distributor in your country, or from a German shop. You can also order it from my webshop, which is probably attractive if you think about getting some textile tools or supplies at the same time.

Personally, I must admit that the e-book has never gotten me onto its side - I just prefer a bunch of printed and bound paper. I do, however, know how helpful an e-book can be, and I will think about this both for the German and the English version. It is, however, not the first option for the English version.

And regarding the voices who recommend self-publishing or print on demand... thank you for helping me think out of the box. Unfortunately, several reasons speak against using a pod service for this book - and not the least of those are your finances.
A publishing house puts out money for a book to finance an appropriately-sized print run. But they also handle law questions, distribution channels, advertisement, review copies, layouting, proofreading and editing, and thousands of other pesky details. Yes, it would technically be possible to do a pod run and "cut out the publishing house" - but we are talking about a 400-500 page book here, with colour pictures at least for parts of the book. This means it either needs to be all black and white, or it's unaffordable. And while the publishing house also needs to make some money (back) from the book, using its distribution channels and structures also means that a lot of things will be cheaper than if I tried to get it via POD.

There are books perfectly suited to using Lulu or some similar service, but my thesis is not one of them: I did the calculations and all the maths for the German version, and trust me... you do not really want me to go pod with this. It would cost you much more than if I'm going with a publishing house.

Do your part.

2012-01-19T08:58:00.002+01:00

If you are like me (as in living in a non-US state and not keeping up on politics), you may have been surprised yesterday to see Wikipedia blacked out. (Icanhascheezburger was also blocked out, which I found out when I wanted to amuse myself with LOLcats while scanning visual survey cards with 1200 dpi - which takes a long time.)

If you are not living under a rock like I am, you will have heard of SOPA/PIPA before me. The tl;dr version: a bill is to be passed by the US Congress that supposedly stops piracy but would effectively mean a go-ahead for censoring the internet. Censoring the Internet. The place that made Rule 34. The place where you can find about anything. Where people throw around links, search for stuff, buy whatever they need or like, and connect with other people - all this would be in danger with the act.

This video can tell you why.

I'm doing my share of blogging, and that means passing along links. Like this one here to a primer about SOPA/PIPA (to get the quick and dirty version in form of an infographic, just scroll to the very end). To you, the readers, because I think that they might be interesting, or helpful, or funny for you. Posting links, however, sounds like it is going to be a dangerous thing after SOPA/PIPA passes - especially since my blog is a "domestic" site (it's blogger.com). Oh, by the way, so is the Textileforum site. Even if its server sits in Germany.

If you're just a little like me... you won't find that a great thing. Even if it inspires nice filk like this.

So please do your share and protest! If you live in the States, it seems to be most efficient to call your congressperson or walk into their office to tell them what you think about the act. Links to lists and help to find person and phone number are all over the InterBloggoTubez. Unfortunately, it's not so easy to protest when you are no US resident - but we can at least spread the word!

Image Tweaking.

2012-01-18T09:11:00.000+01:00

It really is amazing how much time a single small macro can gobble up.

Especially if, when you are almost through, you decide that the process might be even better suited to the aims if done a little differently. Because it does make a difference whether you run a median filter first, or whether you filter out outliers first, or make a transformation to binary first and run filters later on.

Anyways, I now have a method to turn a scan of thread samples like this:

into this:

and then read out the thread thickness of every single one of these threads.

Now I only need to wrangle the gazillions of datapoints into something resembling histograms or some other form of legible visualisation. And be amazed again at how much time a single little spinning experiment can eat.

January seems to be the Month of Quests for Data.

2012-01-17T10:18:00.000+01:00

Via an e-mail list, I have received another request for data from someone else, regarding users of warp-weighted looms.

Christina Petty is looking to ask other weavers using warp-weighted looms questions in context with her PhD thesis, so if you are a weaver or know one, please send him, her or yourself to her webpage with the questionnaire and help gather some data!

The quest for numbers... again.

2012-01-16T11:10:00.001+01:00

As you probably all know, I am working on getting my book, "Kleidung im Mittelalter", published in the English version.

I have found a publishing house that is very interested in the book, but they are unsure whether there would be enough interest in the book, and thus enough buyers, to make it worth their while (and their investment). With the translation costs and costs of print and binding, especially since it includes colour pictures, a book like this is not easy to calculate.

When I was at this stage for the German version, I set up a newsletter list for people interested in the book. This did work very well for everybody, so I am doing it again. If you subscribe using this form, I will keep you informed about any developments on the publishing front, and if there should be any special offers or subscriptions possible, it will make sure you hear of this. On the other hand, your name on the list and your input about pricing will make it easier for the publishing house (and me, of course) to gauge interest in the book.

The German version has 529 pages and more than 400 illustrations, some of them in colour. It features information about sewing techniques, textile techniques, how to critically look at sources for garment research, the development of medieval clothing, a reconstructed technique for tailoring historical garments and - last but of course not least - a catalogue of still extant medieval garments and garment fragments from 500 to 1500.

So if you are waiting for the English version of my book, please subscribe - and please pass on the information about this!

More things that may have gotten lost before the holidays.

2012-01-13T09:39:00.000+01:00

And here's another heads-up regarding a symposium - I will be there as well:

On the occasion of a three-year research project on 'Dyeing techniques of the prehistoric Hallstatt-Textiles' funded by the Austrian Science FWF [L431-G02] at the Natural History Museum of ViennaTextiles' funded by the Austrian Science FWF [L431-G02] at the Natural History Museum of Vienna both an exhibition and a symposium will be organized. In co-operation with the University of Applied Arts Vienna, the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna, the Austrian Society for Textile-Art-Research and the Cultural Heritage Agency of the Netherlands at both events, a colourful spectrum of research and art is presented.

Exhibition:
colours of hallstatt |textiles connecting science and art
hallstattfarben | Textile Verbindungen zwischen Forschung und Kunst
Venue: Natural History Museum Wien
Date: 17th January to 29th of June 2012

Symposium:
3000 Years of Colour – from Tradition to Art and Innovation
2nd International Symposium on Hallstatt-Textiles
Venue: Natural History Museum Wien
Date: 21st to 23rd March 2012
Registration and further information: http://3000yearsofcolour.nhm-wien.ac.at

Hallstatt in Upper Austria is famous for its prehistoric salt mining. Due to the conservation by the salt, organic finds survived more than 3000 years. Among them are the oldest dyed textiles of Europe, from the Bronze Age (15th - 13th cent. BCA) and the Early Iron Age (Hallstatt-Culture, 800 - 400 BCA).

During both the exhibition and the symposium scientists and artists will provide you with a thorough insight into the unique world of prehistoric textiles and their colours. It will be shown how prehistoric dyers succeeded to use the colours of nature for dyeing textiles and what these colours mean to us today. The last three years scientists investigated the prehistoric dyeing and textiles techniques, analysed the dyes and fibres of the prehistoric finds, collected dye plants, cultivated woad, performed dyeing experiments and experimental textile archaeology and produced replicas of Iron Age ribbons. By the archaeological textiles, by ancient dyeing and textile techniques, by colours and ornaments artists were inspired to create objects of contemporary art.

In the exhibition the various topics will be presented together with prehistoric textile finds from Hallstatt, the reproductions of the ribbons and the art objects.

The three-day Symposium will include lectures of these topics, an art performance and tours of the exhibition and of the textile collection of the Papyrus Museum. A social program will enable you to exchange your experience with an international audience in a relaxed atmosphere and will complete your own "Hallstatt Experience".

Things that may have gotten lost before the holidays.

2012-01-12T08:57:00.000+01:00

I gathered yesterday that launching the call for papers for the Textile Forum shortly before Xmas season may have led to this going under - with all the other seasonal things to take care of and the end-of-year frenzy of work.

So here it is, again:
We will be having the next European Textile Forum in Mayen, Germany, with the kind support of the RGZM. Our focus topic will be "Metal in Textile Crafts", which we think is a very exciting and very interesting - and also very broad - topic, covering everything from the conservation processes of archaeological textiles by metallising via the use of metals in the embellishment of textiles or the use of metals in the mordanting and dyeing process to the manufacture, importance and use of metal in textile tools.
The Forum will take place September 10 to 16 in the brand-new Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology and will include the usual evening lectures, one extra lecture day, an archaeological experiment to find out about the possible influence of the lead dye pots from Pompeji dye workshops on the resulting colours, and of course plenty of time to work on projects and exchange knowledge, tips and tricks or complain about problems to colleagues. The full conference fee of 300 Euro covers full board and lodging in simple dorm rooms (lodging is of limited availability).

If you are interested, you can find out more via our website www.textileforum.org - there you can also register for the Forum. And if you are not interested, but know someone who might be - please spread the word!

Open Access Archaeology Journal Database

2012-01-11T09:28:00.000+01:00

If you are looking for a convenient way to search for Open Access archaeological journals, there is a database where you can search by geographic area, subject area, peer review and whether or not it's still publishing: Just go to Open Access Archaeology Journal Search.

In other news, I am slowly catching up with all the backlog that ran up here, and that really feels good! (Though there's more than enough work for the rest of this year hiding in corners here and there...)

How time flies.

2012-01-10T10:43:00.000+01:00

It's hard to believe how time flies by - it's January 10 already, and tomorrow evening, Karina Grömer will be visiting Erlangen to give a presentation about the Hallstatt textile finds and their reconstruction.

In case you are interested, it is a public lecture starting 18.15 in the Kollegienhaus in Erlangen - more information about the lecture series, place and time can be found on the website of the institute.

I'm looking forward to this!

Welcome, 2012.

2012-01-09T09:56:00.000+01:00

I'm back from spending time with family and friends - and now I will be dropping right into the task of catching up with all the mails I received and the usual beginning-of-a-new-quarter stuff.

I hope that your festive season was as wonderful as mine was, and that you are energetic and well starting into this new year - which will surely bring interesting things. And, of course, mistakes. (Nobody does the New Year Wish like Neil Gaiman.)

And I will be delighted to share the happenings of 2012 with you, over this blog!

Happy Holidays!

2011-12-22T11:09:00.000+01:00

2011 was a crazy year, with lots of good stuff happening, but also a few unexpected setbacks. It saw the start of my online shop, for one thing; way too little knitting; the death of several persons that I knew and the birth of several new persons in our circle of friends, plus a few illnesses of people near and dear that are mostly overcome, and we hope for the best regarding the rest. For me, it was a good year; not always easy, but what would life be without its challenges?

It was a good year, and so much of this is due to the people I know. Friends, family, dear colleagues - there is a bunch of human beings that make my life awesome by sharing a bit of their life with me. They make me feel as if I can never really fall, because there will always be someone who will catch me. And if I need a hand - I can be sure to find somebody who offers me help, and support, and pitches in with some additional ideas about how to solve my problem. They are people who will share their food with me, spend their time with me, give me a boost when it is needed and space for myself when that is necessary. I have friends that I can trust so much that it's no problem to show a weakness or to say that I'm down and depressed about something. And this is making me ridiculously happy, and wonderfully content, and makes me feel incredibly lucky. And if I had a wish free for the rest of the world, it would be that everybody could have wonderful persons in their life and really, deeply appreciate them.

And now I will have two weeks off, in which I will spend a lot of time with a lot of friends and family, and I am so much looking forward to this. I will thus not blog until January 10, when I will be back and hopefully totally re-energised by having had to eat way too much delicious food and having laughed enormously often.

So to all of you, wherever you are and whatever you may celebrate in the coming days:
Have happy holidays with lots of enjoyable moments, and have a really good start into the new year!
See you on the flip side!

No snow again.

2011-12-21T10:22:00.000+01:00

The deliciously white and fluffy layer of snow that covered everything yesterday is gone overnight. I miss it - it really looked totally beautiful, and there's been way too little snow this winter.

In other news (probably more interesting for you), the Call for Papers for the Textile Forum is out via the newsletter as well (which means that the new newsletter list does work), and I'm still working on the thread thickness analysis. The system works, and now it's more or less only (hah!) a question of getting the data read in, formatted, and evaluated. Which means more work on that stuff - but work that will eventually yield more interesting data, and I am very, very curious to see if it will be possible to trace yarn unevenness back to influence of fibre/fibre preparation, spindle or if it's more or less a personal thing depending on the spinner again.

Apart from this, I'm wrapping up the last things I really want to finish before going on a break for the holidays - and as every year, I am looking forward so much to spending time with family and friends. Only a few days left! It's already the twenty-first!

It's updated!

2011-12-20T11:47:00.000+01:00

We have finally wrapped up all the prelim discussions and clarifications, and now the Textile Forum homepage is updated.

As previously hinted and announced, the Forum 2012 will be held at the brand-new Laboratory for Experimental Archaeology, a new research facility of the RGZM. Our focus topic will be "Metals in Textile Crafts", and we are looking forward to an exciting time with this very wide and fascinating topic. You find the Call for Papers and more info about registration here.

As of now, you can also register for the event, which will take place September 10-16, via our registration page. And please spread the word about the Forum!

Only one more week!

2011-12-19T10:20:00.000+01:00

To be exact, less than one more week, since it's December 19 today already. Good thing my ImageJ macro now is working soundly, since there are only four days left to go before Christmas!

For those of you who don't know (or are wondering about my counting skills), I did not count today, and German Xmas starts on December 24. The evening of this day is when celebrations begin, and it's also the time when presents are given (and unwrapped). No waiting until Christmas Day in Germany.

And now a little bleg: I have been wondering yesterday about how widespread the tradition of baking Christmas cookies really is. I know there's some baking in America, and I know it's a firm tradition in Germany, but I really have no clue about the rest of the world. Will you let me know in the comments if seasonal baking is done in your place of the world? In exchange, I will let you know how to get really sticky fingers and a really sticky knife.

Buy a packet of marzipan paste, a packet of dark chocolate (or two) and a packet of dates (or two). I like to buy the "raw marzipan paste" with less sugar in it, and the black very sweet and soft fresh dates (not the drier Deglet Nour, which are the most common dates hereabout).
Cut the dates open and replace the pit with a date-pit-sized piece of marzipan. Press date closed again (the sticky fresh dates are malleable, making this easy) and dip the date into molten dark chocolate, covering it completely. Set aside to set. Enjoy.

Three things at once.

2011-12-16T10:29:00.000+01:00

Or is it only three? Anyways, here's the news on three things I'm working on:

The Textile Forum. We are in the process of wrapping up the planning stage, and I'm already working on the update of the web pages so we can go live. And yes, that includes the call for papers, which will officially be sent out when the website is updated, and a brandnew registration form. Said form or rather its making and adapting, by the way, ate a good chunk out of my workday yesterday. Because I do basically not know how to do php stuff.

Connected with the Textile Forum, I have also finally changed my newsletter-sending software arrangement, which will hopefully end the weird formatting that newsletter recipients have had to endure the last few times. If you wish to subscribe to the Textile Forum Newsletter to receive announcements and the call for papers (and that's about all that is going over the list, so you won't be inundated at all), you can do so via this form.

And also connected with the Textile Forum, and the famous 2009 spinning experiment, I have further developed the method of how to measure thread thickness variations. The good news: Yes, it works, and will so very well. The bad news: I have to do some filter-testing and script-writing and macro-wrangling to really make it work, and my programming fu is about as nonexistent as my fu in all the other things that I actually don't really know stuff about but try to fumble my way through them anyways. (In German, I would call it "herumeiern", which is more or less wobbling around somewhere and not getting to the point, or traipsing around more-or-less-aimlessly. Just like an egg does when you roll it. And I love that word.)

At least it's Friday! So once my brain is in shambles due to too much pressure on the logic circuits, I will have all weekend to relax and recuperate.

It might really work.

2011-12-15T08:51:00.000+01:00

So after spending most of yesterday installing ImageJ, reading through its documentation, playing around, recording macros and trying to figure out how to get a clean, reliable output of data with actually useful information... I think I have figured out a way to do it.

Well, this still entails having to make a visual survey card with very good contrast between card and yarn and then scanning it in at a suitably high resolution before being able to evaluate the threads, but that is still much less work and equipment than would be needed to do it the usual way (which is climatising the yarn, then cutting it into small, exactly measured snippets, then weighing each of the snippets and calculating the tex value, and finally getting an overview of how regular or irregular it is), plus it's a non-invasive method.

So now I only (hah!) need to figure out a way to implement my ideas and make things nice and reliable so that they work with all the visual survey cards, plus devise some macros that deliver the data to files in a sensible way to make it all less work and more click-and-be-happy.

Yay. And this, by the way, again proves my point that whatever skill you pick up, you will eventually be able to use it for work when you are an archaeologist. Including basic programming knowledge.

Hah! or not Hah!, that is the question.

2011-12-14T08:44:00.000+01:00

I may or may not have found a way to consistently and quickly measure both the diameter of hand-spun yarns and their thickness variance. With no highly specialised tools for textile analysis.

Actually, with very few tools at all.

I will know whether I can go "Hah!" in joy about that once I have bent my mind around the working functions of one or a few picture analysis programmes... and then I'll tell you all about it.

Still busy.

2011-12-13T11:08:00.000+01:00

Things are still busy here, and a good bit of that is due to a bit of additional research I'm doing on the Spinning Experiment data. And totally related to this, we have figured out most of the things we needed to figure out for the next Textile Forum, and I will be working to update the website during one of the next days, and writing the call for papers for the Forum.

If you are already thinking about it: We will be in Mayen, Germany, from September 10 to September 16, and the focus topic will be "Metal in Textile Crafts". Stay tuned to learn more about it soon!

More. Moooore!

2011-12-12T10:24:00.000+01:00

It's getting more and more dangerously close to the festive days, and I'm doing what I have traditionally been doing these last few years: I'm baking cookies - with help from the most patient husband of them all (who tries to turn a blind eye towards the mess I make of the kitchen) and with some additional help from friends. It's the traditional family baking (at least the bulk of it) that I took over from one of my Grandmothers, main cookie producer before me. And since the goodies are supposed to last for at least three nice afternoon coffees with family and maybe some additional friends, I make a good-sized batch.
The nice thing about typical German-style cookies for this season is that they can be made quite a while before they are supposed to be eaten, since they keep very well and usually get better with some time in a tin. So it's not a baking frenzy (at least not necessarily) but can be distributed over a few weeks.

Plus there's Christmas markets everywhere now and rich food and hot tea or mulled wine, and much meeting with friends. Only the snow is still lacking around here!

Seasonal Food.

2011-12-09T09:07:00.000+01:00

Seasonal food at this time of year, in Germany, means food like duck and goose and dumplings and rich sauce and red cabbage. (And usually eating way too much. Which happened to me yesterday evening, so my brain is not all awake yet, which means you get a food blog entry.)

Now red cabbage is an interesting thing, because it is called either Blaukraut - blue cabbage - or Rotkraut - red cabbage - here, depending on the region and the regional typical way of preparing it. And both names fit the food, red or blue, because the colourant in the cabbage reacts to acid or alkaline milieu by a colour change. If you prepare it with lots of acid, it turns red. If you prepare it with only very little acid, it will turn purple.

And if you would like to see that for yourself, you can do so here. Or do a picture search for "Blaukraut" and "Rotkraut" and see all those colours!

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