Sprang on the Brain

I have sprang on the brain.  Sprang is a bias fabric formed on a frame by plaiting stretched threads.  Hammocks are made of sprang.  The idea of sprang intrigues me.  With handspun, of course.

Someone recently mentioned to me that she has tried sprang.

I read Mary M. Atwater's Byways in Handweaving, which has a section on sprang.

In Dorothy Hartley's Lost Country Life: How English Folk Lived I found an illustration taken from a manuscript at Trinity College.  The author describes the illustration as possibly sprang, "a curious old weave" that gives "a curiously elastic fabric."  The illustration shows the entire frame and notes there is no weaving shuttle and no weft.

I finally read to the end of Marta Hoffmann's The Warp-weighted Loom and found mention of the questions raised by the Oseberg loom artifact and the Monte Cassino MS loom illustration.  The "thin line running across the warp" sounds like a sprang setup.  The Spanish Peacock sells a reproduction Oseberg loom as a sprang loom.

I discovered some Youtube videos, from user denblauwenswaen, on how to do sprang.  On her site, she has examples of finished items, including sweaters.

I ripped out the blue scarf-in-progress again because it needed a smaller needle size.  Ah, the perils of knitting.  Sprang looks pretty good in comparison.  Perhaps a nice pullover made with sprang.

This could all be just big talk.  I dislike big talk.  I normally keep quiet about my textile aspirations on this blog and concentrate on writing as I go along about what all I've learnt and actually done.  But, watching Blue's videos I believe sprang is something I'd like to do.

First I need to spin yarn for it.  Then make or get a frame.