Lyre

No. Not a liar...
Since last June I'm the proud owner of a Trossingen style lyre. I've been in love with lyres for quite some time now. I found this beauty at Ars Anglia, where Thomas offers great Instruments.
I fell in love with this lyre and began to play instantly. After some days I decided to change the tuning from dcBAGF to EDCBAG. I like it better for singing along.

To play chords, it is easier to use a band that is wrapped around the wrist and attached to the lyre. I decided to make a tabletwoven band with a floating pattern from Randi Stoltz.

I love the sound of this little Instrument and was amazed, how versatile it is. And beautiful.

I took the lyre already with me for some camps and even for busking in town.

For better transport I made a case from faux leather and a fleece inlet that consists of multiple layers for protection.

And finally, a new video on my long neclegted YouTube channel, complete with lyre and all ;)

Lauresham

Oh my, that was quite a long time without a blogpost. But here we go again :)
It is not that nothing happened in the meantime, rather the opposite, I just had no time to edit photos and put texts together.
So, for this post, let's start with an event I went to last June. It was a craft weekend at Lauresham. Lauresham is the Old High German name of Lorsch, a town that is well known for its abbey and is part of the UNESCO World Heritage. Lauresham is a carolingian manor site, where events and experimental archaeology projects take place. They do a great job, especially with the agricultural experiments which include ploughing with oxen.
We went to Lauresham for the craft weekend, where I was asked to demonstrate tabletweaving.
We were allowed to live in the houses for the weekend and it was such fun!

For the weaving demonstration in the weaving house I decided to go for the tabletwoven brocaded band from Maaseik. It is still not completely done, there are more patterns that I need to write down, so there will be enough to do for this year's craft weekend. I was surprised how well the weaving went. I only had to weave back about three times, and no long sections. I was weaving along while simultaneously explaining the different techniques and especially the brocading to visitors and they all seemed very interested.
I was allowed to put my work on the museum's Oseberg style loom. An interesting experience, on the second day i switched the stool I was using to one with a backrest ;)

 Before the event I hade to make some carolingian clothes, as most of my dresses only fit in a scandinavian context. So I went for a simple combination of a linen underdress and a woollen overdress with shorter sleeves, as can be seen in the Stuttgart Psalter. My first version still had a pretty large neckline and the sleeves were a bit wide and didn't make weaving exactly easy...

So for this year's events I made another dress. Still very simple but I adjusted the pattern to my needs and now I am pretty happy with the outcome :)

 I will be showing tabletweaving again on the craft weekend, which will take place on 9.-10.6.2018 in Lauresham and I'm very much looking forward to doing so!


And since Lauresham is just such a beautiful place, here are some photos for you which I took last weekend: