I am finally in a position to include images from outside my North Rhine focus. It honestly covers so much of Europe. I need to be able to put Anne of Cleves ensembles in context in her own lands, but also within the power structures across Europe as there is a tendency to only compare Anne and her fellow wives.

I needed to at least have the ruling houses sorted so that now I can add in portraits that are of unnamed, or misidentified people.

So exciting though.

I also recently sorted through tapestries as they are a rich source of information given figures are of at least life size.

Oh! I can use shortcuts! I’ve been trying to work out how to work with those who married outside their homeland and changed their style. I can double up information files but separate the folders and add shortcuts.

Oh the whole though it’s not common for this to happen in adulthood.

SO EXCITING! This tapestry sadly is historical, but is so very contemporary.

I first found her in a print collection by Zimmerman who very definitely used 1st or 2nd or even 3rd hand physical depictions. In this print? I think her head gear is inspired by some illustrations of Anne of Hungary.

The original is a lovely apricot and silver, I’m giving serious thought to making this from my pale blue taffeta and silver and/or white velvet for an Elsa inspired gown.

I have enough true depictions of dress of the time and place this is grounded in.

I’ve spent the last few months pretty stressed, it’s not going to get better but I’m trying to keep focused on the fact I am still able to work on my projects (as pain and fatigue permit) and it’s helping a bit. I also am able to finish work on my little photo area at the back of my studio and I have a very good DSLR with remote so I can get some good photos.

I’ve painted the back wall with a nice clear turquoise by mixing phthalo blue and green, as they are translucent and mix with wall paint nicely. And I have a nice rug, the two together will be great for some Bruyn inspired portraits.

I’ve been working on my Anne of Cleves research too. I’m finally confident in some aspects that I’m able to actually write in a fairly linear manner. It’s a lot though. All my images have to be cropped and edited and named in a format that makes them quick to find. The written information is so much harder. But I’ve finally managed to get most of that sorted. My unsorted 16thC folder is down from 1500 images to about 400, and 200pdfs down to 60. It’s much more impressive when you realise I had to skim read the contents of each and the topics range from extant textiles, to artists, to archival material from Denmark to Prague and across to Spain.

Luckily the main theme is words about clothes so I’ve got a few keywords to refer to.

But I really need to get each individual archival document formatted in a very similar way to my images. Date, region, artist/archive, person.

This is working well, as I have a few double ups that are now possible to spot.

I have reached an impasse with my physical and mental health. But I have a path which is so important. One of my books has landed in the country and so I’m excited and motivated to be prepared to be told everything I’ve done is wrong or if it is right. It may also not do either and even then it’s going to be helpful.

But I need a break.

I’m in limbo in ways I have no control over. It’s going to be lifelong too.

So I’m trying to protect what and who I love.

I really want to get back to making things, but fatigue and pain are severely limiting what I can do and right now I have a really good and clear goal with my research. But it’s the equivalent of at least a Master’s Thesis, probably more like a Phd at this point.

So obviously that is taking time, but I’m trying to merge my digital files and bookmarks to be able to properly cite what I have.

Just as I start editing my “Will the Real Stickelcehn Please Stand Up?” article I find a stash of images, *and* find an archive item has been updated with a scan and I managed to hunt out the section on clothing. A suspicion I had does seem to hold up and it also fits in with what I have noticed about spelling that has also been confirmed by language studies.

It’s great, but what I suspected is also true: transcriptions often modernise the language and that unfortunately strips out what makes the original spelling so important. So while I can include the archives that haven’t be digitised I can’t add them to my list of words. I’ll figure some way around this, even if it means requesting copies of the microfilm they are on.

But that spelling is varied in ways that make it nearly impossible to do either careful or brute searches. So I need to work on both my essay and an introduction to the language.

I’ve found a neat stream of imagery of noble dress of the North Rhine but it is locked away in a dissertation and a limited edition print of a journal. Fortunately I have a solution so *fingers crossed* as it is so very important in adding to the context of Anne of Cleves.

I’ve tried to avoid opinion pieces about Anne, which is a bit difficult, and instead have tried to find what was expected of her in her homeland and how that did or didn’t match expectations. So having as many depictions of dress of nobility of the region really is vital.

But I’ve also finally managed to tidy an OCR of a very important article in terms of written and spoken language- and it has totally validated what I thought was going on. Rising and lowering vowels, diphthongs, hardening of consonants? It’s going to make it easier to read through archives but it unfortunately makes searching more difficult.

I have collected as many articles, as many catalogues as I could and have only found a couple of images not already in my site. Until yesterday. Eight. Eight of them. All noblewomen of the North Rhine making them really important for my purposes. Good timing as I finally got an article transcribed and translated that is really important as it discussing the written and spoken language.

So today I will be editing those images and sorting them. And I’m finally sorting my online citations which is going faster now that apps are playing together.

I’ve been putting off transcribing and translating an article for over a decade as it is 28 (narrowed down to 26) A4 pages of 11pt text on in German with special characters every other word or so. OCR has come a long way since, but this article wasn’t available that way. So I now have apps and tools to do this in one day as it’s vital: it is part of my reasoning behind almost all of my use of NRW clothing terms. So it’s really important to be able to cite where the info is in the page.

It’s just tough as even using a really good spelling and grammar editor it is still not able to offer special characters very easily so even though I am now 6 pages from finishing I will have to go through again to put in special characters. But why would I have to do that? Because the special characters are specific to grammar in many ways. Not sure why a list of potenial words don’t pop up, but that’s where we are.

I’m finding I am able to read it pretty well, which is amazing. The last year of stress and fibro has made even thinking about trying to read another language just.. ugh.. nope. But I set today aside to get a bit of time in and it is helping. Not sure how long this will last, but I’m grabbing on to whatever I can manage today!

So I do have to have a lie down with all sound blocked out, fibro increases sensitivity to light and sound, and as they feel like they make up most of my head, most of my head feels deeply uncomfortable. Wearing glasses adds to the vision but also skin sensation as the weight on my nose feels like it increases.

So, hopefully this time tomorrow I’ll have a new page to share. But yesterday was spent tracking down all the apps I need to edit pdfs and then parse through OCR and to then edit as a text. It was A Lot.

I am genuinely finally on the last stages of the next big update for my Anne of Cleves research. I’ve been collecting and drawing from as many digital sources as possible, images, documents, transcribed documents, and also in all that time paying attention to any improved sources and that has happened a few times now.

So I’m reorganising ALL THE FOLDERs which is quite time consuming, and there are a handful of images that are double ups in my timeline because I got a more appropriate date.

It’s also creeping ever closer to the time I need my Elsa gown made and I’m frustrated by my pain and lack of energy interfering in both. But progress is progress is progress. So I have to remember that.