VEsterheim sprang Lace

This is a shawl I made with motifs inspired by pieces in Vesterheim, the Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa.

In the spring of 2018 I had the honor of teaching a sprang class at Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. During the class the museum curator Laurann Gilbertson asked if we would like to see pieces of sprang from the collection.
Of course we said, "Yes!!!" ​

The class was allowed an up-close look at six lovely pieces of sprang lace.

​Back in the classroom I used the teachable moment to talk about the ways a person might derive a lace pattern from an existing piece. At the same time I promised the curator that I would provide the museum with charts for all the motifs.
The lockdown of the past two years has provided me ample time to work through the many sprang lace charts I've created with pencil and graph paper, and to translate them into something that can be published.

The big announcement in this blog entry is the publication of a new 50 page book of sprang lace patterns. These are the patterns I derived from the sprang lace in the Vesterheim, Norwegian-American Museum. 

Curator Laurann Gilbertson graciously contributed to the publication by providing information on the Norwegian lace tradition as well as information on the individual pieces from the museum records.

For cover art for the book ... of course ... the sprang pieces themselves were perfect.

Front cover

Back cover

Now, the work to publish a book of sprang lace patterns is more than writing the charts. I have come to recognise the importance of checking for errors. It seems the best way to do this is to create a piece following the chart and to compare results with the photo of the original. My lovely apprentice Sharon Wichman offered to do this. She wrote down her observations as she worked and these, too, are included in the book. 

After many long hours, and diligent work by my editor Ruth  Temple, I am happy to announce that the document has been sent to the printer. I expect to have copies of this brand new sprang lace pattern book available next month at the HGA's Convergence in Knoxville. The book will also be available for sale on my website. A down-load-able PDF version will be eventually available at www.taprootvideo.com
And by the way, that shawl featured in the photo at the top, that shawl will be on display at HGA's Convergence in the Leaders Exhibit.