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Looking through my stash for something else, I came upon a ball of fine singles handspun wool. Just the thing for a Bronze Age – inspired cap. Examining photos I took last Summer of items in collections in Copenhagen, many appeared to be constructed of a very tightly spun singles. Now, I have a theory. A very tightly spun singles might be just the thing for sprang. The amount of twist you add (or remove in the mirror-half) is insignificant with respect the the amount of twist-per-inch in the yarn. It has been my experience that, if I leave a ball of singles set for a year or more, that yarn is no longer fit for plying. It has lost much of it’s need to be plied … and is just fine to use ‘as is’. When I came upon that ball of my attempt at fine spinning, forgotten for over two years, I was delighted, just the thing to explore making a cap. Working with this ball of singles, I realized that my spinning was indeed rather inferior in quality. It was inconsistent in diameter and amount of twist. I held my breath that the thread would hold, no breaks while ‘spranging’. Indeed my yarn did hold. Some of the caps exhibited ‘interlinking’ stitches. Other caps, those that looked much more dense, were constructed with an mix of ‘interlinking’ and ‘interlacing’ stitch. I opted to explore the latter.  Here is the wool sprang cap. The finished cap had much diminished tendency to curl. The cap laid flatter than caps I have made using commercial sock yarn.
Once again, hand spun yarn can be superior to commercial yarn.
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 The finished second pair of sprang pants! This is how I did it. Inspired by the work of Dagmar Drinkler, I made a pair of sprang pants. Difficulties encountered had me reflecting on how I could do things differently, and this meant making a second pair of pants. The difficulties centered around three major problems: 1) My technique in adding those extra threads at the thigh left me with quite a sniggle-heap on the first pair. I was sure I could manage that addition better. 2) The crotch needed shaping. I had the opportunity to meet Dagmar Drinkler in person and the crotch shaping was one of the points I wanted to discuss with her. She said that she did not do any special shaping for the crotch of the pants she made for the mannequins, left them open a bit at the meeting point . I decided that, despite the amazing stretch that is natural to interlinking sprang, I did need to do some shaping for the pants to fit my shape. 3) I was unsatisfied with the waistband on the first pair, knew I could do better All this in mind, I set up a new warp. Reading in Peter Collingwood’s Techniques of Sprang, I found the perfect way to set up my warp.
 Close up of the two ends of the warp. The meeting of the two ends of the warp happens around that knitting needle, taped to the dowel on the left. This is what I used for the dowel in the middle of Peter Collingwood’s design. The dowel on the right creates a shed for my first row.  Checking the cross, I detected an error. Horrors! One thread had gone across the meeting point, instead of around and doubling back. Rather than unwind and re-do this, I added another thread. I then clipped the place of the error and tied two knots. This short-cut worked just fine. Work progressed on the warp nicely. The first few rows formed the ankles, and work progressed up the calf of the pants towards the knee. At about mid-thigh, I measured out another warp of threads exactly the same length of the as the yet-unsprung-warp.  Adding threads at the mid-thigh line I found it was important that this new warp has its own independent suspension system. I’m not always successful at creating a perfectly even warp. This always causes me a bit of trouble over the first few inches of sprang work, until the un-evenness works itself out. This was the case again here. There was a slight unevenness between the two warps, as well as within the new warp. A very tight tension on the new warp when pushing the Z work to the S place helped. It was a couple of inches of work before things settled in. The two warps had been placed one on top of the other, and worked as double-cloth (Collingwood 167-173).
The double layer of threads opens the opportunity to a wide variety of color designs. It also allows the piece to widen … a good idea for people whose thighs have a greater circumference than the ankles. You’d think that the double layer, one sitting on top of the other, that there would not be much difference in the width of the cloth, but my experience has it that this addition does widen the cloth considerably, especially when the threads are held together and worked in the same shed.  To shape the crotch I tied off warp threads on either edge of the warp. Rather than cutting a finished rectangle of sprang, I dipped into my knitting experience, and decided to create exactly the shape I needed for the pants. I tied off threads to form that shape. How many threads did I tie off? Well, I guessed, based on my sewing experience, trying for the shape in a pair of stretch pants. Threads were cut, and then tied at both S and Z pieces. Getting to the waistline area, I worked to make the back of the pants a bit longer than the front of the pants.
This would allow me to form a waistband casing. The knots could be located on the inside of the waistband.  Time to separate the legs of the pants at the waistline. Threads were cut a couple at a time, and immediately tied off on right leg and then on left leg, closing in the waistband casing. Now it was time to go back to the very first rows, and pull out the thread that joined the two pieces there. This became the ankles.  Sewing up the inside seam on the leg. In interlinking sprang, if you are careful to keep the edge thread at the edge, you can create an invisible seam. Imitate the interlinking stitch with your sewingup thread. I sewed the pants from ankle to crotch.  The seam at the front of the pants imitated the interlinking stitch. Sewing the crotch required a bit of creativity, keeping the knots to the inside, and trying to imitate the interlinking stitch on the outside … but then, I’m hoping people will not be looking at my crotch too closely.  The finished second pair of sprang pants! I’ve created a number of military sashes this summer.
The sashes with the colored stripe are wool NCO (non-commissioned officer) sashes, and were typical in the British army in the 1700s and into the early 1800s. The solid colored red sash is silk officer’s sash.
And in between, I’ve created several of these coin purses.  Miser’s purse, an authentic way to keep your coins, Medieval style Made of silk cord, they are modelled after the image in Downer’s book Nelson’s Purse, and hold quite a lot of coin.
Remember that sash I was privileged to view at George Washington’s Mount Vernon last September?  Carol at George Washinton’s Mount Vernon, examining the Braddock Sash. Well, thanks to funding from the Winnipeg Arts Council, and the superbe cooperation of the Mount Vernon curatorial staff, and silk from Treenway’s, I’m ready to get started on a replica. The first step is to dye the silk to the right color. It came to me on cones. I am using an inkle loom as a frame to wind my skeins for dying.
Silk needs to be thoroughly wet before dying. Here it goes into an enamel pot for 24 hours.  Into the pot to soak awhile. I attended the Textile Society of America Symposium Sept 19-22 in Washington, DC. The title was ‘Textiles and Politics’. Papers were presented on all manner of topics, textile work and the economy, textile work in emerging economies, dyestuffs, self-expression. My paper was on the subject of sprang and military sashes. I met textile experts from around the world. While in the DC area I had arranged to visit George Washington’s Mount Vernon. Staff there allowed me to inspect the Braddock Sash. Of note, the beginning- and end-threads of the circular warp were tied to a neighboring thread at the middle meeting line, just like Peter Collingwood suggests (Techniques of Sprang, pg 259-261). And here I’ve been advocating that you remove that edge thread.  Carol at George Washinton’s Mount Vernon, examining the Braddock Sash. I’ve been trying to keep up with my weaving while travelling. Luckily fingerweaving can go anywhere. Here I took a photo of myself working in my hotel room in Basel, Switzerland.
I was in Basel, Switzerland in order to visit the AbeggStiftung.  The small Swiss village of Riggisberg near Basel is the home of an amazing textile collection and research center known as the AbeggStiftung. One of the curators showed me around and let me examine a mid-asian skirt. A major component of the skirt is worked in 2-2 interlacing. Some of the pieces of 2-2 interlacing are probably 3 meters long … yes, this is possible with fingerweaving. I made up a piece of 2-2 interlacing, using Peter Collingwood’s directions.  European trains have hooks that are most conveniently placed for weaving. I completed the sample and mailed it to the AbeggStiftung for them to compare with the original.
While in Switzerland I also visited with Noemi Speiser. I’ve been blown away by her books. Her Manual of Braiding, for example brings such order to a wide variety of structures. I had to meet her. She is a delightful character. I only hope I’m half as sharp, should I make it to her age. On to Munich where I met with Dagmar Drinkler. Over the past two years several people have referred me to Ms Drinkler’s article from the Archaeological Textiles Newsletter. She has recreated sprang pants, following inspiration in Greek painted sculptures. Now on to Holland where I hope to meet Blue (of denblauenswaen fame) and Fenny Nijman. Here I am in Copenhagen, Denmark. I’m here getting rid of jetlag before the Braids 2012 conference next week, and at the invitation of Katia Johansen, curator at the Danish National Museum, whom I met at the Textile Society of America Conference in 2010. The view outside my window gives you a bit of an insight into the daily life here. Lots of bicycle traffic.  View of the street from hotel window Copenhagen The whole point of my visit here is to view sprang articles in the collection of the Danish National Museum. Yesterday I went to their facilities just outside Copenhagen, located in an old textile factory.  The Danish National Museum in Brede I was priveleged with an up close and personal view of sprang sashes which belonged to Danish kings, as well as two of those sprang hairnets described by Margrethe Hald, dating as far back as the bronze age. Of note, singles (mind you very fine and very tightly spun) were used. The Danish National Museum in downtown Copenhagen has some lovely hairnets as well. Exquisite! All done in fine, tightly spun singles!  fine wool singles I am thinking that if you spin very fine and very tight (greater than 45 degree angle of twist) and leave the spool to set for a year, the yarn will then have forgotten its need to kink up on you. The amount of twist added or subtracted in the sprang work will be insignificant in relation to the amount of twist in the thread.
At any rate, I’m seeing fine singles in these pieces. I made a silk sprang sash earlier this year for a military re-enactor. Officer of higher ranks had sashes were made of silk, a very strong fiber. Now there are stories out there about people being carried on sashes. It seems that a person injured on the field could be carried back to camp on the sash. A client earlier this year requested a sash wide enough and long enough to try this out. So I made this sash, and then encouraged him to try it out, and send me photos. I even promised to replace the sash, should it not hold up to the claim. He has now sent me photos of the event:
 The people at head and foot bear most of the weight. The people on the sides keep the sash stretched laterally. I think I’d recommend another two people to distribute the weight a bit more. I was assured that the sash was not at all damaged by this test. The sash was seven feet long, and eight inches wide lying on the ground. When the sash was stretched laterally to support the full width of the body, it shortened a bit. I was told that another two feet of length (and probably a bit more width) would be desireable. I hear that the Braddock sash is 24 inches wide and 12 feet long, a very nice size for a litter.
I’ve been researching sprang, looking for evidence of this textile technique in North America. Archaeologists at the Manitoba Museum tipped me off to an experimental archaeologist in Minnesota.  Large, thin walled replica vessels are made by Grant Goltz. Grant Goltz has successfully recreated pottery using native clay. Normally the clay found across the American mid-west cannot be formed into the thin-walled large pots commonly found at sites of human habitation excavated by archaeologists. Mr Goltz, lead by the textile imprints in the pots, creates sprang bags, and then forms the pot inside the sprang bag. The bag supports the clay when wet and permits the creation of thin-walled vessels. The results are very accurate replicas of pots excavated from 900 year old sites. Bags made as a rectangle, folded in half will not work to re-create these artifacts. The markings on the pottery clearly indicate ‘decreases’, fewer threads at the bottom of the pot than at the rim. He told me that he initially tried to form the bag working from the rim down, tying knots as he removed threads. This did not yield satisfactory results. When he got the bright idea to work from the bottom up, he discovered that this method allowed him to create pots with markings identical to the pots from the dig sites.  Pot on the left, and bag under construction on the right Now, I find this exciting for a couple of reasons. It is another piece of evidence suggesting that North American people were creating textile bags 1000 years ago. It suggests that one textile technique used could have been sprang. I love the fact that it is a loom-less version of sprang. I’m really wanting to re-popularize sprang. Mostly the instructions for sprang start with the description of the loom or frame required. I’m wanting to find the ‘no-tools’ method, get people hooked with the technique, and then they will be motivated to fork out for the frame.
Challenged myself recently to make a garment using the sprang technique. Using an egyptian cotton I began with a very large rectangular shape, working from hem to hem. At about armpit level I added warp to allow for sleeves. Yes the work was very wide at that point. I worked from right to left in sections, each tied off with a safety cord.  Sprang garment takes shape I left a slit for the neck, and finished with a safety cord that goes from wrist to wrist, across the back of the neck. The finished garment was worn, seen by many at the Handweavers Guild of America Convergence in Albuquerque.  Sprang Sweater At Congergence I kept hearing about the ‘Ancient One’s Shirt’. Finally tracked it down on the net. You can view it at http://www.statemuseum.arizona.edu/coll/peris2.shtml Based on images of this garment, I’ve spent the last two days working out the pattern. I’ve now created a scarf, playing with the design.  Inspired by Ancient Design While at Convergence I saw the perfect frame for smaller sprang projects. It’s called ‘Loom in a Tube’ from Rebecca Smith. She sells a set of plumbing pipes that fit together to make the frame. Adjustment as the cloth grows and shrinks are easily made with threaded pipe and screws. Check it out at http://www.loominatube.com/
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