Fall 2015

CIETA (Centre International d’Etude des Textiles Anciens) held its biennieal conference in Berlin. I attended, presenting a paper co-authored by Dr Maureen Matthews, curator at the Manitoba Museum. The subject of the conference was ‘Textiles in Transfer and Transformation’. The Canadian sash seemed to fit the topic perfectly.
I met amazing people at the conference, and learned a great deal about textiles … as is usual at such conferences. After the CIETA conference, I travelled to Prague where I met with an amazing sprang artist, Sylva Cekalova. Check out her website
http://krosienky-sprang.cz
Yes, the website comes up in the Czech language, but there’s a little British flag in the upper right hand corner, that takes you to the English translation. Sylva showed me some of her creations, and I am in awe. We discussed diverse pattern-writing methods, different approaches to communicating the structure.

I then travelled to Munich, where I visited with Dagmar Drinkler, famous for her research on those sprang leggings. I’ve met with a few snags in my attempts to re-create garments in certain Medieval portraits. Her suggestions are always helpful.
In France I visited with the archaeologist Fabienne Medard. She and I are working on that reconstructed sprang turban, will present together in Antwerp in late November.