Sprang – The first steps

This post assumes that you have constructed a class sprang loom, and warped it in two colours, with 8 loops of each colour (or 16 loops total), with the colours alternating ABABABABABABABAB. For each of reading I will call these colours “light” and “dark”, and I’m also assuming the light colour is on the left. Each loop has a “back” and a “front” string; the bar on the top (or bottom) separates them nicely, but the front and back positions ae only relative and constantly subject to change.

This post won’t have any pictures until the class tomorrow, when I can take pictures while someone else is playing with the string.

Besides the warped sprang loom, what you will need handy is 4 skewers (2 used at the top, 2 at the bottom, and you can use more, but I like two), and eventually a long handled crochet hook, when your work is getting close to the center.

The loops are manipulated from right to left; they all start on your left hand and finish on your right, so your right hand is doing most of the work. I usually work with the thumb, index, and middle finger. On both hands, the index finger separates the front and back strings, while the thumb and middle finger are used as needed to control the strings.

The basic movement is what I call the push pull. (Books call it F/B or forward/back.) All work is done with the right index finger.

Push the rightmost front string off the left index finger and behind the right index finger. Use the right middle finger to keep it in place.
Pull the rightmost back string from behind the left index finger and move it in front of the right index finger, using the thumb to keep it in place.
Repeat this pair of movements until all pairs have a single twist and are sitting on the right hand.
Place a skewer both above and below your right hand, pushing them as far up and down, respectively, as you can, and remove your hand.

You have just completed a single row. If you kept repeating this row the loops would get twisted, but there would be no intertwining between loops to make fabric, so every second row you make one single change.

For the very first push pull, push two front strings from the left to back position on the right, and pull one back string to the front position. Now work everything in single string, until you reach the far left where you will have one front string and two back strings remaining. Push the front string, pull both back strings together. What this does is offset the twisting, so each front string will now twist with a neighbouring loop’s back string.

Note: I usually use 2 safety skewers one ecah end; once they’re both inserted, on the next row, when I need to insert a new skewer, I pull out the older skewer, and place it in place. This way I can always easily revert to the current or previous row by taking my hands out of the strings and using the skewer to separate front and back strings.

When you’re close enough to the center that you can’t fit your fingers anymore, use a crochet hook to mimic your right index finger, and work off the bottom skewer (which is mimicking your left index finger).

The easiest way to finish the center is to thread a string through the gap between front and back strings. Alternatively, you can use the crochet hook to hook up the strings. I usually work front and back separately; in front, put the hook under the rightmost front string, then hook the next front string under and around the rightmost string. This is your first loop. Now pull the next front string through this loop. Repeat until you reach the far end and tie the final loop off with a scrap piece of yarn. You can also hook the other side.

I use practice pieces to make pouches, so sew up the sides (or down from the top if you left nice long tails while warping) after folding the fabric in half. It will try to twist a lot; using skewers to “pin” the sides together can be very helpful. Then two drawstrings through the top loops (one exiting at each side) and you have an easily closing pouch.

Sprang Class – the Loom

I’ve taught beginner sprang before, and it occurred to me that it was time to start documenting some of what I’m doing.

The loom I use is made from pvc pipe and pvc elbows, so that it snaps together. The warped loom stands on its own, and gives you an almost vertical work area, making it easier to manipulate the thread.

The pieces of the loom: two long lengths of pvc (approx 2 ft long), three medium lengths (approx 1 ft long) and 2 short lengths (approx half a foot long), as well as four elbows and two 3-way elbows.

In addition to the pvc pipe, there are also 8 elastic bands: pairs of 2 elastic bands tied together. Two sets each on top and bottom to hold the double pointed knitting needles I had handy. You don’t need to use knitting needles, of course; chopsticks or skewers or anything not too thick that can withstand a little pressure from the yarn.

I’ve also warped the loom, by using a bi-coloured ball of yarn. The ball of yarn is made by combining two colours of wool using a ball winder. The loom is warped by tying off at one end of the top knitting needle (leaving a long tail to use later to sew up the side of the pouch), then winding the ball around the bottom and top needles in one continuous spiral, finishing up at the top needle.
(In this case I used 14 loops of the ball, or 28 loops total. Half pale yellow, half blue.) Again the end is cut with a very generous tail, and tied off with a double hitch. You don’t want too tight off a knot since we will have to unpick it later.

Other tools I use include 4 skewers (or skinnier knitting needles), and eventually a long crochet hook and a latch hook.

Next post I will start talking about how to sprang.

Masefield’s Sprang Fever

There’s something about John Masefield’s “Sea Fever” that is very … adaptable. I’ve been inspired by his poem before to write about weaving in the Fever post. But today I realized I hadn’t made a sprang pouch in 2 days, and was feeling the pangs of withdrawal … and this happened.

Sprang Fever

I must go back to the sprang again, to the lonely warp and the frame,
And all I ask is a pattern and a safety rope to tame,
And the yarns' twist, as the colours' travel, all interlinking,
And the twining slides on the fabric's face, and the small dots blinking.

I must go back to the sprang again for the call of the intertwined
Is a wild call and a clear that cannot be left behind.
And all I ask is a clear warp with the colours alternating,
And the twined slide and the sudden turn and the midpoint waiting ...

I must go back to the sprang again, to the stretchy warp of yore
To the pouch sewn and the hair net that was worn in the far before.
And all I ask is a merry yarn dyed the cheerful colours adored,
And a pile of pouches stacking high to form a loving hoard.

I had a little hoard of pouches; they’ve traveled to White Wolf and Phoenix in search of new homes. I have, of course, immediately started the new collection, but these are the ones on the road.

Ruminations on Sprang Designs II

So as I described in the previous post, I’ve been working on blending regular interlinked and interlaced sprang. The first picture below shows the progress I made in chronological order, left to right, and then below that I’m going to discuss each pouch in greater detail. All five pouches were warped with 24 loops, alternating between two colours.

The first pouch where I tried to follow the pattern described in the previous post, where the interlinking started out as z-twist. After years of spranging in s-twist, this was more complicated than expected. The sprang is very loose, and for the bottom few rows I switched back to s-twist. Also, looked nothing like what I expected.

So I changed the startup position for the interlacing from AABB to AAAABBBB. This looked less busy, but there were still tension issues, and moreover, the diagonal stripes were 4 threads wide.

Which led to the next design, where the interlacing was arranged with repeated AAABBB; so that one colour had two adjacent threads on the front, and the other on the back. And the interlacing panel looked nothing like what I’d expected. It was at this point that I finally (belatedly?) realized that the threads that started on the back would slide to the left, an the ones starting on front would slide to the right, so that AAABBB did not produce thinner diagonals, but instead unbalanced diagonals. Back to the drawing board.

For a complete change in setup, when warping the loops were still alternating colour, but after the first two rows to set the sprang, extra twists were added so that all the front threads were one colour, and the back threads the other colour. This finally created the look I was trying for, inspired by Collingwood. I also beat the individual rows a lot harder, switching from a safety string to 4 skewers; two high and two low, left inserted in the previous two rows. After every row, the oldest skewer was extracted, then placed in the new shed, and a lot of pressure was applied because interlacing is naturally much looser than interlinking.
Everything went swimmingly until I switched back to interlinking, where I accidentally repeated one row instead of switching between braid and overplait. A mistake I didn’t catch until I’d sewn the pouch together. Oops.

For the last pouch, I changed the width of the interlaced panel so that it was only 8 loops wide, instead of 12, which also meant the interlaced pattern didn’t run as many rows, leaving me with some extra space to place with colour changes near the bottom of the pouch.

The nice thing about churning out a set of five small pouches with variations is that it makes it easier both to understand what I’m doing, and to modify and improve, without necessarily undoing and starting over many times. And now we go on experimenting with other patterns, more colour combos, etc.

Ruminations on Sprang Designs I

So lately I’ve been futzing with sprang. Mostly, just doing the simple designs that I use when teaching; warp is two colour, warped alternating colour, and intertwining can move coloured yarn from side to side to make vertical stripes or diamonds or what have you.

But then I started dreaming about more complex patterns.

And then I dug out a copy of Collingwood’s 1974 “Techniques of Sprang”. Collingwood’s writing is very dense, and moreover, what he’s written is a compendium of techniques. There are no “projects” included to try out, and the information density of each page is high. So there are two things I want to try eventually: one is doublecloth, where the bicoloured sprang separates into two layers, and by switching threads between layers you can switch colours, and the other is to combine interlacing and regular 1/1 interlinking.

And today’s dream is all about a piece of sprang where the borders are all 1/1 interlinking, but in the center there are 1 or more rectangles of 1/1 interlacing. The first attempts will be small, so will be turned into little pouches, and we will see where it goes from there. The notes I’m writing here are primarily to help myself remember what Collingwood is talking about as I combine information from Chapter 5 (basic 1/1 interlinking, p 68-73) and Chapter 7 (Interlacing p 184-187, 197).

Notation (and translations into what I do)

When I teach, we start with the simple s-twist version where threads start on the left hand, and we always push the next one thread (or two threads on the right edge) to the back before picking up the back. In Collingwood’s notation this is written as “B\F“. The alternate is z-twist, where the back thread is picked up first and then the front thread is pushed to the back. This is written as “B/F“. The key point is the direction of the diagonal: the thread that moves first is the one closest to the bottom of the diagonal.

Notation (spaces added for easier readability)	Translation
B / F	pull back up, push front down
B \ F	push front down, pull back up
B / 2F <- (B / F) <- 2B / F	plait row (z-twist)
<- (B / F) <-	overplait row (z-twist)
B \ B <- (F \ B) <- F \ F	overplait row (s-twist, interlacing)

Translation Table for Notation

Row instructions are typically read from right to left, as the threads all start on the left hand, are manipulated by the right hand, and end up on the right hand. Combinations in brackets are repeated multiple times across the project.

The plait and overplait row are alternated; it’s just that when I teach the two rows I use the S-twist variant. I’ve leaving the Z-twist version in the translation table because that’s what Collingwood uses.

1/1 Interlacing

1/1 interlacing alternates the usual z-twisted plait row followed by a row of S-twist interlinking, with special moves at the selvages. The F \ F and B \ B are special moves. For F \ F work with two front threads, rather than a front and a back thread, and the left front thread is pulled over the right front thread and pushed to the back. Similarly for B \ B, work with two back threads; again the left thread is pulled across the right back thread and pushed to the back, while the back thread that’s been crossed over (originally the right back thread) s pulled to the front. In Collingwood’s notation he uses (F \ B) for the repeated step in the middle, but that’s primarily because a normal plait row would begin with a B \ 2F, and so that back thread still has to be deal with, throwing off the tempo, as it were. So the over plait row could also be written as B \ B <- (B / F) <- F \ F, but that looks as though you’re dealing with 3 front threads in the beginning, when you’re not.

Combining interlinking and interlacing

Here’s where the magic begins … or here’s where I have been rereading this section since last night, and now I’m writing stuff down just so it will hopefully stick. The project will consist of two types of areas: interlinking all the way across, created by alternating standard plait and overplait rows, and rectangles of interlacing centered in the interlinking.

For a first project, assume 24 loops, 12 each of a dark and light colour. The rectangle in the center will be 12 loops wide, with 6 loops on each side, and will be 6 rows high, with 6 rows of plain interlinking above and below.

Pattern:

Repeat	Rows	Description
3	B / 2F <- (B / F) <- 2B / F <- (B / F) <-	plait row. overplait row
3	B / 2F <- (B / F) <- 2B / F <- (6 B / F) <- B \ B <- (10 F \ B) <- F \ F <- (6 B / F)	plait row overplait row with interlacing in the center (interlacing in bold)
3	B / 2F <- (B / F) <- 2B / F <- (B / F) <-	plait row. overplait row

Basically the special row is the overplait row in the interlacing; there for the 24 loops, the first 6 are pull back, push front, then on two front threads push the left thread over the right thread and to the back, next 10 loops are push front, pull back, then on two back threads push the left thread over the right and down, pulling the other back thread up, followed by 6 more pull back, push front. (edited to fix typos)

And now all I have to do is finish the current sample on the loom, where I was trying 2/2 interlacing, and then warp this up and see how it goes. So pictures will have to wait …

Meanwhile, just browsing through the picture plates in his book has me pondering more intertwining approaches, and I still want to teach myself double cloth.