String Notes

I don’t think I have enough things to actually make up a post, but I don’t want them to get lost, so here you are.

A whole new perspective on Penn State squirrels

Medieval medical science (yes with pictures; you’ve been warned)

Commander Chris Hadfield on Zen Pencils. What are you going to do today?

Here, have a picture. This is what I’ve been working on, or not working on. Some of both, I suppose. A pair of socks on DPNs, and learning how to knit two socks at once on two circs.

Also, boxer.

First and most exciting: Ancient Textiles, Modern Science is available for pre-order from Oxbow Books/David Brown Books (here’s the UK link).

The European Textile Forum was founded as an annual meeting for academics, craftspeople, re-enactors and enthusiasts to share their experiences and compare notes. With varied day workshops and evening lectures, the ‘Textilforum’ has something for everyone. [...]

Table of Contents
Introduction (Roeland Paardekooper)
1. A conference from the Craftsperson’s Perspective. Introduction to the European Textile Forum (Sabine Ringenberg & Katrin Kania)
2. The Spinning Experiment – Influences on Yarn in Spinning with a Handspindle (Katrin Kania)
3. Structural considerations for understanding historical tablet weaving (Sarah Goslee)
4. The Use of Craft Skills in Historical Textile Research (Viktoria Holmqvist)
5. The 13th -16th Century tablet-woven bands from Estonia (Ave Matsin)
6. Textile Techniques of the Stone Ages (Anne Reichert)
7. Tracing production processes and craft culture – the reconstruction of the Gunnister Man costume (Martin Ciszuk & Lena Hammarlund)
8. Reconstructing the dyeing industry of Pompeii through experimental archaeology: the challenges and rewards of a new approach (Heather Hopkins)

Nancy Spies is now offering PDF versions of her books for sale, including the out-of-print Ecclesiastical Pomp and Aristocratic Circumstance: A Thousand Years of Brocaded Tabletwoven Bands.

Here’s a new puzzle. I was asked:

I once saw someone at a Swedish folk music and dance etc. weekend turning string into bands for wrapping around the top of the cute little pointy toed northern Swedish boots. They accomplished this by means of a forked stick. They did something that results in crossing threads on a diagonal to make the bands. Sadly, I have no idea what it might be called, so I can’t really ask my friend google, and I would like to know how it is done, since I have the boots, but not the bands. If you, or any of your friends, has any idea what this technique is called, I would love to know. Thanks!

The textile it makes is a flat band, a couple of cm wide, and only as thick as the yarn gets when it crosses over itself in one place at a time. At a distance one might guess tablet weaving or inkle woven band, but instead of a separate warp and weft all of the strands served both functions, crossing at an angle to weave down between the adjacent threads.

It sounds like finger “weaving” to me, but then what’s the stick for? I’m sure some of you know what it is.

Upcoming SCA events of interest:

Hrim Schola, March 23, Clinton, MA. The East Kingdom’s premier fiber arts event (and one of the inspirations for FFF).

Mynydd Seren Textiles Day, March 16, Bloomington, IN. A new fiber-focused event for the Midrealm.

I don’t expect to be at either, but if you’re in the area you should consider them.

Dyeing.

The first 120 volumes of the Archaological Journal are now available online.

It seems like everything I’ve done with string for the past couple years has been for classes and articles and such, and it feels wrong to me to put much of that on the blog. If nothing else, someone has paid money for that piece of knowledge, and I don’t want to just give it away for free.

Which reminds me: I don’t think I ever mentioned here that I have an article on nearly foolproof kivrim/ram’s horn in the Fall 2012 issue of TWIST. If you’ve ever struggled with that pattern (and you’re by no means the only one!), this article is for you. (A new subscription is $10, and you get access to the back issues. Why not join right now?)

I had help putting together the sample, of course.

There are certain advantages to having an elderly cat: he sat on my lap while I wove the sample, and merely made faces at me when I used him as a photo accessory. When the eventual replacement kitten(s?) show up I’ll be back to weaving behind closed doors.

Lots of samples, lots of demonstration pieces. Interesting, useful, but not necessarily fun.

And then there’s this.

I was messing around with a tiny pin loom. It’s actually an adjustable kit that I picked up several months ago with a half-off coupon and finally got to play with. The pieces aren’t for anything, no class or article or workshop in my future. They’re just for fun.

Because, you know, I like string.

WordPress ate my post, it seems. So here, have some pictures instead.

I’ve been traveling enough that I bought amusing socks specifically for going through security.

This trip: Oklahoma City, for a combination of professional conference and project planning meeting.

I stayed at the Colcord, Oklahoma City’s oldest skyscraper. The building’s twelve stories were quite the thing when it went up in 1908, but it’s now dwarfed by the glass Devon building next door.

The second part of the meeting took place at Fort Reno, former cavalry remount station and current grazing research site.

No really.

Ferocious Monster, Octoberish 1994 – January 13, 2013

Morgan was my longest constant companion, accompanying me from North Carolina to New Mexico to Pennsylvania. He outlasted Ghost and Grendel: there before either, and after both. He was with me longer than Nick, even.

But eventually the body wears out, the medicine stops working so well, it’s cruel to try to make the cat stay longer. The vet thought they could hydrate him, give him different meds, get me a month or so with my cat, or at least a few days so I could see him again after my trip.

They were wrong.

Nick took Morgan his beloved gingersnaps and held him.

I’ll head home Tuesday, to an emptier house.

Working on New Year’s Eve? All by yourself in the office? Here are some things that might keep you from getting too bored.

The UK has put images of all publicly-owned paintings online, all 212,000 of them. Here’s the search.

How Grendel Stole Christmas.

Evidence for Viking-era hemp in Norway.

A spindle typology, with pictures.

Archaeology Data Service journal archive.

MetPublications: some amazing stuff here.

MetPublications is a portal to the Met’s comprehensive publishing program. Beginning with nearly 650 titles published from 1964 to the present, this resource will continue to expand and could eventually offer access to nearly all books, Bulletins, and Journals published by the Metropolitan Museum since the Met’s founding in 1870. It will also include online publications.

The Three Little Pigs

It’s Christmas morning, if only for another hour. There’s family, and food, and even snow.

And the boxer, of course.

I’m looking out the window at the snow, with a mug of coffee and some knitting.

One sock on double-points, one pair of socks on two circular needles. I wanted to learn something new and that sounded entertaining. It took me a couple of tries to get everything going the right direction (mostly my brain, I think I did it right the first time but understood it wrong). Now it’s kind of fun, but I’m not sure yet if the entertainment factor will survive turning the heel.

Later there will be the now-traditional crabcakes, and a long walk in the snow with the dogs. I hope your holiday morning, if this is a holiday for you, is as pleasant, and if not that you’re having a relaxed and quiet Tuesday.

Unlike the dogs.

For those of you interested in science fiction, I have a short essay on fabric and worldbuilding at Science in My Fiction today.