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Setting up a circular warp for sprang requires care. Setting up a long warp using fine threads demands extra care. Knowing this, I recruited the assistance of helpers. Local weaving enthusiast Paul Sparling volunteered. So did Sarah J Hull, who flew in from DC. She's interested in my work and wanted to participate, get an inside view ... well ... I expect she got an eyeful.  The experience of the first time through the creation of such a sash told me I'd be wise to have someone watching the cross and counting the threads. The cross absolutely must be 100% correct for the centre of the cloth to be error-free. Paul did this job admirably. Experience has also shown me that tending the umbrella swift, seeing that the threads came off the hank smoothly is another critical job. I've since decided that the stirring of the pot in the dying process tangles the threads slightly. Better to dye the threads first, and then combine into hanks, so that they are less tangled, come off the swift more smoothly. This makes for more consistent tension in the warp.  The next step is to work the initial row. It's important that each stitch is correct. Any error will show up at the very centre of the work. The challenge is compounded by the fine size of the threads, and even more so that I am working with pairs of threads. Each stitch needs to use the correct two pairs of threads.  Slight differences in tension mean slight differences in lengths of threads. This causes horrible tangles when pushing to the mirror-image side. I am stuck in a nightmare. It's like Red Riding Hood facing the wolf. Now, I know how the story goes. I know that the kindly woodsman enters the scene in time. He deals with the wolf, and there is a happy ending. I know from experience that the un-even-ness does work out ... it's just that I'm not there yet. I'm still staring at the open mouth of the wolf. But the interlinking stitch does have amazing forgiveness. And the silk strands are very strong ... will not break (just trusting that knots in between the various skeins hold tight). The un-even-ness will work out  The color of the sash that is in the keeping of George Washington's Mount Vernon is red. But what shade of red? I discussed the situation with curator Amanda Isaac. Dying is not something I consider to be my strong suit. Yes, in the past I've dabbled with plants and flowers, picking the petals, fiddling with mordants. There's just too much to explore there, too many things that affect the color, and I've found it necessary to narrow my focus. I focus on the technique, and short-cut the dye process ... all this to say, I've been using commercial dyes. I've been using Landscapes dyes. They are an eco-friendly dyestuff, using plants rather than chemicals.
She chose "chili" .... so that's the color I'll use.
The first step in making the replica sash is ordering the yarn. According to my records, the size of silk I need was called "machine embroidery silk". Yes, it's the gauge of sewing thread. And it needs to be reeled silk, not spun silk. I'm wanting my sash to be able to do the job that historically was its purpose: to transport the wounded off the field of battle. More about that later.
The original sash featured pairs of threads in the warp. The threads were not plied, but rather sit parallel in the sash. This seems to be typical for sprang sashes from eh 1700s. The reason for this, according to Coby Reindeers-Baas had to do with rules set by weaving guilds in Europe at that time. There was strong bias for "spindle spun" thread as warp (as opposed to "spinning wheel spun" thread). I've decided that the first thing I need to do with this silk, is to combine skeins, putting them into skeins of parallel threads.
The next step will be dying the silk. I sent three small samples to the curator. Waiting to hear what she thinks, whether or not any of those reds will be the color they want.
It all started back in 2009. I was looking at a photo of a sash with a date of 1709, and the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. I thought, "That's exactly 300 years ago". Encouraged by the success of my book Fingerweaving Untangled. I was contemplating writing another book. What would be the subject? What textile method was I sufficiently familiar with, that needed an instruction book? The answer was sprang. Something people said they really liked about Fingerweaving Untangled was that it included pieces from museums. What pieces could I include in my book on sprang? Perhaps I could write to museums and get permission to use photos of bonnets from Scandinavian peat bogs or ancient Egypt. But, I thought, my audience would be mostly North America. Are there any examples of North American sprang? Looking through Peter Collingwood's book Techniques of Sprang I found an excellent example in the photos at the back. There is a photo that says it's George Washington's sash. I thought to myself, "That's the piece to entice North Americans". So I wrote to George Washington's Mount Vernon. Certainly they were the ones holding that sash. The photo they sent to me was of a different sash (apparently George Washington owned more than one sprang sash). The sash in the collection at George Washington's Mount Vernon is the one given to him while serving in the British Army in 1855. His commanding officer, Edward Braddock, mortally wounded, passed the sash to Washington, effectively handing over command of the troops. The photo they sent featured interesting lace patterns, probably do-able, I figured, with sprang, but the photo did not show the mirror-image aspect that always happens with sprang. Thus began some back-and-forth correspondence asking them to verify that it is indeed a sprang sash.
I had met up with the sprang technique in the 1990s. Fascinated, I needed to learn more. Local yarn stores taught classes in knitting and crochet. The local hand weavers guild offered instruction in loom weaving. No where could I find a class on the subject of sprang. I decided that I would need to create the opportunity to travel and that my teachers would be examples of sprang in collections. The Braddock-Washington sash was one such teacher, and I learned a great deal from that sash.
The people at George Washington's Mount Vernon tell me that the replica sash has created much interest. One aspect was the test of the story that the mortally wounded General Braddock was carried off the field on the sash. People have asked whether or not this could have really happened. My replica has allowed this theory to be tested ... and yes, the silk fibers are strong enough.  All this comes up for me because of a series of events last Summer. The eventual outcome is that I am now committed to making another copy of that sash for George Washington's Mount Vernon. They will be unveiling a new display on July 4, 2026. That display will include my replica sash, and, having a replica on display, it's their policy that they need a second replica. Hence this, my latest project.
Figuring people like you, out there in the world of the internet, might be interested in the process of making such a sash, I am hereby committing myself to try to remember to blog about the process. Yeah, if you look, you'll see I've not been very faithful to this blog over recent years. But I promise to give it a try, to try to remember to update this blog over the course of the next few months, keeping you informed of the progress of this project: replicating (again) the Washington-Braddock sash. Last Summer I made a scaled down copy of the Braddock-Washington sash for Carlyle House. The word is that the display is now complete, and viewable to the public. Here is the photo they sent me, the mannequin wearing the general's uniform .... complete with sash.  Wednesday was the first day of spring. You can’t tell it by the look of things outside. I took a picture in my back yard.  The backyard is level with that sidewalk at the foot of the stairs. Yes, the snow in my yard is up to my waist. Here’s hoping it all melts soon, but not so quickly that we have flooding.
Still working away on that sash. A small disaster yesterday. At the end of a row, I let the first part of the row slip off the other end of the needle. Lucky I have a safety line in place. Susan DuBois suggested those little rings that open up so you can place or move them easily to help keep track of stitches and patterns. Sounds like a great idea. I’m past the point where I was worried about keeping my count, fewer numbers in the repeats from here on. I’ll certainly try those rings next time. Thanks Susan for the suggestion. I am finding that numbers are my friends. The only way to prevent mistakes is to count stitches, and re-count after every row of work.  Photo by Chris Black Now, generally, when I get to working, my mind sometimes drifts. Counting more than, say, 20, I am never 100% confident that my count is Really correct. I experimented with a couple of things to help me keep track of threads. I thought about placing ‘marker beads’. This would mean sliding on the required number of beads ahead of time, sliding them along as I measured out, and leaving a bead in place at the appropriate place. The problem I anticipated was that any knot or slub on the thread would mean that the rest of the beads could not pass. I opted for placing little ‘marker threads’ every 100 threads. We re-counted at each 100, to make sure this marker was accurately placed, and to be keeping accurate account of the number of warp threads.
As soon as I began to ‘sprang’, however those markers proved impractical. They got tangled, and created tangles. So, I’m relying on counting and looking, checking each row twice. Breaking down the pattern into smaller pieces helps. Indeed, most of the patterns on this replica sash do that. And let me stress again, keeping the threads well separated goes a long way toward error-prevention, as well as making it possible to push each work around to the other side. Work on the sash replica continues. The length of cloth is now such that I’m ‘over the top’.  The cloth is now long enough to extend over the top. The first few feet of the sash were worked on the ‘front’ of the frame. Each time I worked a row, the new shed was pushed down, around the bottom, up the back of the frame, and finally over the top. Each time a ‘Z’ row was completed, an ‘S’ row was added above.
I’ve arrived at the point where I now sit and work with the ‘Z’ row at a comfortable height and the most recent ‘S’ row is on the ‘back’ side of the frame. The ‘S’ portion seems to need a bit of encouragement to compact together. Early on I found that a heavy knitting needle in the last row, clasped to another needle for security, was the right thing to press each row against the previous. It also served as ‘safety’ line, should (horror of horror) I loose my working shed. Now that I’m over the top, the heavy knitting needle works at cross purposes. A few rows past the top of the frame, I noted that the needles were weighting downward and away from the cloth. At this point I switched to wooden sticks. The sticks are lighter than the metal knitting needles and not particularly well finished, so they ‘grab’ to the threads in the last shed, don’t fall down. Progress is slow, but steady on the sprang sash. Here is where I am. The date is now on the sash.  General Braddockâs father graduated from military academy in 1709. A reporter for the local French language newspaper stopped by to interview me. Her camera is also a video camera. She shot a short youtube video. For those who do not speak French, I explain the basic idea of sprang, two rows of cloth for every one row of work. The video then shows you a close up of the sash, and then how I move a row of work around. The sash grows from a central line outward towards the fringes. |
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