Sprang?

During the first weekend of November, I took a two-day sprang workshop with Carol James. Southeast Fiber Arts Alliance offered the class in this amazing but rare technique.

Unstretched

I was interested in the technique because it is sometimes confused with knit and crochet in historic collections. Center for Knit and Crochet at some point will want to have resources on their website to help curators and collectors discern among knit and crochet as well as tatting, nålebinding, sprang, and the like. When we reach that point, I want to be useful.

I came away with an appreciation for this amazing technique that dates all the way back to the bronze age. Carol showed us a picture of a Greek vase where the weaver appears to be making sprang. (There's an archeology journal article here.) The technique was common in European military sashes, which is how Carol was introduced to it through her business producing military sashes for reenactors. She also showed us pictures of Medieval costumes showing tights with vertical stripes. And apparently some of the ancient Greek statues showing naked Greeks fighting clothed Persians may have been depicting Persians in colorful sprang costumes. This technique excited me both as a textile enthusiast and an art historian.

I found Carol's arguments persuasive that some items identified from pictures as knitting might be sprang — for example, the tights or leggings with vertical stripes. In knitting, this is difficult to do. I would do it using circular intarsia, which is an advanced technique. If knitting were common, you would expect to see horizontal stripes in leg wear. In sprang, however, vertical stripes are very easy. In fact, vertical stripes might make the project easier and faster to work!

It is hard to exaggerate the horizontal stretch of sprang. This stretch is inherent to the fabric, allowing for horizontal stretch even in fibers with no stretch, such as cotton, linen, or silk. There is no vertical stretch. Horizontal stretch when activated will, of course, cause the fabric to shorten vertically.

Stretched

In a nutshell, sprang is a cloth-making technique akin to weaving.
Attributes:

• Easy to set-up — only a simple frame or a couple of sticks.
• Weft-less — requires a warp but no weft.
• Very little loom waste.
• Relatively fast (compared with knitting).
• Creates two mirrored pieces of fabric.
• Can be worked as a flat rectangle (like a scarf) or as a circular warp (a rectangle that comes around and meets itself, such as an infinity scarf).
• Has a lot of horizontal stretch but a lot of vertical stability.
• Excellent for vertical stripes, hand-dyed yarns, intentional pooling, and other striping or ikat-like effect.

In a wider warp you would use sticks because thread capacity would exceed hand size, but in class we used narrow warps and manipulated the threads using our fingers. On Saturday, Carol was wearing a sprang garment in different colors that was made from ten pieces sewn together.

The pictures are details from a lace practice sampler I made using variegated sock yarn. The patterns were written for a warp of 36 threads, but I ran out of yarn and had a warp of only 34 threads. Elements to notice:

• The center line. Above it, the fabric is Z-twist. Below it, the fabric is S-twist.
• Gauge. My Z-twist was packed in tighter than my S-twist. Beating both sides evenly is definitely a skill achieved through practice.
• When relaxed, patterning is hidden. Patterns in sprang are most visible when the fabric is stretched.

If you'd like to see some of Carol's amazing work, you can visit her gallery of sprang here. You can find her YouTube videos posted as sashweaver here. For example, her video on circular warp is here.

There is a video here where Carol talks about recreating George Washington's sash. Truly a monumental achievement!