Sprang - learning a new craft

 I have forced myself to a hiaturs in sewing projects, since I need to finish a non-sewing related thing. So what did I do instead, well I've been trying out different kind of yarn and string crafts instead. So yes the deadline for that other thing is approaching and I haven't worked as much as I should on it. After a Sunday with a lot of wasted yarn trying to come to terms with braiding garters, weaving ribbons and making string I decided to pick up this book that I have had in my shelf for many, many years.

I had read through it, but without really understanding the instructions. The last 5 years språngning, or sprang in English, has really picked up steam within the crafting and historical recreating community, so nowadays there are also a lot of tutorials out there. My biggest help was this tutorial by Sally Pointer - "Make a sprang bag with handles"

The book and tutorials made me confident to set up a test piece on an embroidery frame and with some acrylic yarn. And this was the result

Yes it is totally uneven, but I could see that I had figured out the principles, and compared to the string making and braiding I could see a result forming fairly quickly.

The next thing was to get hold of a loom that was a bit sturdier than the the wobbly embroidery fram. And for that I went to the second hand store across the street.

A large picture frame, some knitting needles and chop sticks and I was ready to set up my first bigger sprang project.

Ha, or so I thought. In my overconfidence I spent two days warping 72 pairs of string, that turned into a total twisted and knotted mess. The problem was the tension. On my first text piece I had had a tight tension and it had become impossible to continue the sprang quite far off from the end, so this time I thought it might work to have a looser tension, but it was too loose for my skills obviously. I gave up and removed it. I then found this tutorial on how to warp on a board. And that made it so much easier. The clear plastic that had been in the frame worked perfectly, and was of course in a good size for the frame. Or so I thought.

When I put the warp on the frame it was once again too loose. I removed it (again) and made a new warp, but this time on the short side of the plastic, and finally I had a good tension on the frame. The short side was also exactly the length that I had planned from the start. This time I also cut back on the number of threads, making 60 loops instead of 72, so that it would be easier to keep track of them, but still getting a width on the finished piece that could hopefully be used for something.

So I started spranging, and soon I once again had a bit of a mess. I totally understand that I would miss some threads, but I thought it was fixable. Reading up on this tutorial on "sprang errors and how to fix them" I understood that dropping threads must be corrected by unraveling. So I unraveled everything and took really good care to make sure that I would have the correct number of threads and twists on each row,  and not thinking that was something that could be fixed in the next row.

Here is my current status. It is working. The first rows were definitely tricky so I had to undo several and go back, making sure that I had not dropped a thread. After a while and with good tension on the warp it has started to become easier. The blue knitting needles that are holding the warp are not just tied on to the frame, they are winded up, so I can keep a good tension and when it gets too tight I can just unwind them a bit to make it easier to handle the threads. I haven't seen this solution so there might be some downfall to it that I discover when I'm done, but it works fine for me so far.

I actually got in quite a nice flow and felt that I got a nice net structure going - and then two things happened. I felt that the sticks were in the way for my hands, not between the warp threads but rather where I kept the palms of the hands while the fingers were working, and my mother called. Somewhere here I totally lost track of where I was. I tried to repair it, I tried to switch to lifelines rather than sticks and felt that it might work. But then the bottom of the warp fell of the whole knitting needle. With the mess that it was in I decided to stop.

This is what I could salvage, what is basically the top part. Yu can see that I had some net structure, but then I started to make really big holes. Well instead of getting something usefull I have to consider this another practice piece.

I'm not giving up yet though. For my next piece I want to try with a thicker yarn, I probably have to go to the expensive traditional craft store and get suggestions on what to use, and I want to see if I feel that it works with lifelines rather than sticks, once I have gotten the starting rows correct. I also need to work some with how I position myself so that I don't get such a stiff neck after a while. Well, well, maybe I can get a usable net out of the next piece.