kareina

I happened to glance at FB today at the right time to see a post from northernotter about the talk she will be doing on her hand-woven reproduction of the Skjoldehamn find next weekend. Clicking on the link reveals that the other speaker will be Lise Bender Jørgensen, who has published so many books on archaeological textiles. Of course I have to go!

So I have booked train tickets to Narvik for way too early next Friday morning, and then I will take a bus to Tromsø, spend the weekend there, see the exhibit, attend the talks, and then bus back to Narvik Sunday evening to catch the train home on Monday morning. Since I will be missing work that Monday I can work the following Friday to make up for it, so I don't even need to take a day off. Norway! Mountains! Textiles! I am looking forward to the trip.

This weekend's home improvement project has been prep work to consolidate our beds, in preparation for C moving in. When I first met lord_kjar he was sleeping on a queen sized bed on a simple IKEA frame. It is a fine bed, and we slept on it for several years before deciding to buy the king sized memory foam mattress upon which we now sleep. When we bought the larger mattress we decided to move the old bed to the guest room, and we just put the mattress on the floor, where it has been working just fine. However, when C moves in she will be bringing her bed with her. It is a queen sized IKEA bed with a large amount of storage area under the mattress, which easily lifts up on some sort of spring-loaded pivoting system.

Since this will be more large beds than we have rooms to keep them in, we decided to double up our old and new beds into a single unit. Therefore we built an extension for our old bed frame that is the same height as the old mattress. Now we can put the king sized mattress on top of the old mattress + extension, and it will work just fine. Should we have lots of house guests at once, we can move the large mattress to the living room floor, and that will still leave the queen sized bed in the guest room.

And last, but certainly not least: Snow! Yesterday we finally got something resembling a decent snow fall! Combined with some pretty good winds, so this morning when we woke up we had some lovely snow-dunes stretching across our yard. It took me about 40 minutes to use the shovel to clear the path to the shed where the snow-blower lives, and then another hour for him to use the snowblower to clear the driveways, while I used the shovel to clear out the rest of the walkways, and tidy up some of the narrow little ridges of snow he left behind.

Of course I used the snow I shoveled to build up a little hill in front of the house, and after we were done I got out my sled and played on the hill a bit. So wonderful to finally have decent snow!

Now it is time to head to folk dance for the evening, so even if there were more to say, I have run out of time to say it...

They have announced the dates for this years European Textile Forum. This year they are trying 3 to 9 November because a number of people had said that September had too many other activities of interest to people with interest in textiles and/or archaeology and/or historical reenactment. I really, really enjoyed the 2009 and 2010 Textile Forums, and am sad that I haven't managed to make it back to one since moving to Sweden. I strongly recommend this event to anyone who has any interest in historical textiles.

They have started the serious planing for next year's European Textile forum! This year's topic is "Metal in Textile Crafts"--not just tools for metal work, nor just metal establishments on metal, but also things ranging from metal salts in dying or metal helping to preserve textile fragments in the archaeological record.

If any of you have been doing any research that in any way connects metal with textiles please email them and express your interest in giving a talk or presenting a poster. They also welcome papers on any other textile topics...

I hope I can manage to adjust my schedule to make it this year--the first two were so very much fun!

In my over-crowded in-box is a note saying that the deadline to register for the European Textile Forum this year has been extended to 14 June. How I wish I could attend, the last two years were ever so much fun! This time it will be held at a history park in Austria, and will likely be just as much fun as previous years. Sadly, I cannot commit to attending anything this summer, since I do not know how long it will take to process my visa application (which I cannot even submit till I get to Australia on 1 July, which is after the deadline to register), and I can't return to Sweden till after the visa is approved (which could take many months, though I have met someone who got his approved in only one week). Therefore I encourage all of you to register for, and attend, the textile forum, and to then post photos and trip reports about it, so that I can at least enjoy reading about it...

For those of you who have expressed envy that I've been able to attend the last two European Textile Forums: They have just announced that the next one will be in the UK in September. Details to be released later, but this might be enough notice for some of you to make arrangements to get there then.

I don't yet know upon which continent I will be living by then, nor what I will be doing for an income, but if it is at all possible I will be there. The last two were both amazing--fun, educational, inspiring, full of living history and serious science research, many hands-on lessons and deep in-theory discussions. Totally worth the fact that as a conference it actually charges like a conference (actually, for a conference it is very reasonably priced, it is only expensive by standards of an SCA event).

If you ever get a chance to spend a week in the Schnals Valley in South Tyrol (Italian Alps), go!
( My adventures at the textile forum--cut because it got long and there are photos, but it is worth a look )

Some of you might remember how much I enjoyed the Textile Forum I attend last September. There was something delightful about spending a week living in an Iron-age hut hanging out with fellow Medieval Textile enthusiasts. If you thought at the time "gee, I wish I could have attended that", you have a chance. I've just received the following e-mail announcement:

From: info@textilforum.org
Subject: Announcement Textile Forum 2010
To: info@textilforum.org


Dear Colleagues and Friends,


we are very happy to announce that we have a date and time for the Second Textile Forum: We will meet in Archeoparc Val Senales, South Tyrol, from 6-12 September 2010.


This region of South Tyrol is where Ötzi the Iceman was found; there is also a traditional herding of about 2000 sheep back from their summer pastures, which with a bit of luck will fall on the Forum weekend. In addition, lots of beautiful nature including a glacier can be enjoyed here, there are hiking paths for those who would like to wander around a bit, and an old and very spectacular system for irrigation - we are looking very much forward to a Forum in this spectacular environment.


We are currently working on the preliminary programme and will send you another infoletter once the website is updated with the Call for Papers and a prelim programme.


We hope to meet many of you in
September in South Tyrol!

I really hope that I can arrange my schedule so as to be able to attend again this year!

One of my fellow medieval textile enthusiasts has posted her "I'm home" blog, with some photos from the week in Eindhoven. Here is one ( of the entire group )
and another from the blog of the event organizer which shows the funny hat I made (nålbinding) and finally finished on-site. ( me in a silly hat )

I just spent five days living in an Iron-Age hut whilst attending the Textile Forum, and loved every minute of it! I didn't even mind being without internet for that time. Met many delightful people, including one SCA couple who flew over from the US just for this conference.

I need to do a proper post comparing and contrasting the geology and textile conferences, later. Photos also need to follow, later. As do blog posts on the other geology field trips I've not yet written about.

short version:

* the textile forum combined the very best parts of science conferences with some of the nicest parts of SCA weekend events.
* I learned the "Finnish Stitch" in nalbinding, from a lady from Finland.
* I now own a hand-made iron needle which is even smaller than the tiny quilting needles I normally sew with. It is wonderful!
* bought some lovely dark wool yarn which was died with indigo and iron and I forget what else to make it so blue it is nearly black
* There are people doing some amazing textile research these days!
* It is nice staying in a working history park and being able to make use of the straw mattresses & sheepskins for bedding, and the nice pottery bowls for meal times, particularily when one is flying a budget airlines (read only one checked bag < 15 kg) and one's camping gear is on a ship, somewhere.

If you've posted anything on LiveJournal or Facebook in the past week that I ought to know about, you might want to call my attention to it, as I don't know when I'll have time to go back and read things from between when I left Scotland and now.

I've just spoken with my boss, I am free to attend the Textile Forum the week of 8-13 September 2009. It sounds like much fun--I'll get to camp in an Iron-age style hut! Yay! Anyone want to meet me there? It sounds like a great opportunity for some major Textile geekage, and the things that Katrin has been describing in the way of stuff that she plans to sell at the market (fine silk thread, hand made iron needles, etc...) sound like toys I really want.

The reason I get to go the forum is that by coincidence that happens to be the same week that the rest of my research team are heading off to a national geology conference, and they tell me there is no point in my coming along when I can't speak Italian. I now have a bit of a plan in terms of my work here--basically I've got this month and August to get all of the background reading done and have a *good* understanding of how changes in bulk composition would be expected to change which minerals are present at what temperatures and pressures so that come the first week of September (when my boss will be done with all of his summer travel--both work-related and vacation) I will be ready to start running experiments of my own, using logic when choosing the run parameters rather than just "cook and look". He also tells me that if I want to do any traveling before September that the first 15 days in August would be a good time to do so, as he is away most of that time. So, basically, as soon as I get paid, I'm free to gallivant (so long as I keep up with the reading and learning on my own, of course)!