Språng by Correspondence

I have been corresponding about språng with a number of people.  Sometimes it's a brief exchange and sometimes a sustained effort.  Last week I got to answer a puzzler about historical språng items partly by using a quote from Shakespeare's King Lear.

To pass skills and information back and forth, ideally people stand shoulder to shoulder and model things and talk about things in real time.  That is not always possible so I'm using a few different methods to deliver my content.  Am using email, online discussion boards, my YouTube how-to videos, and my Pinterest pins.  And now, I present, sprang by mail.

Specifically, I made a warp and sent it to someone by post.  In a small way, it's similar to chess by mail which I read about once in a novel, except I am supplying physical parts not just a charted or written move and I don't expect the warp to come back.  To change the game metaphor, it's like an assist in hockey.  The recipient has a goal, and I'm setting up the conditions for meeting the goal.

This is targeted at the skill of interlinking only.  There are a lot of skills to learn with sprang and it's the recipient's goal to eventually be able to do all the steps in sequence independently, to plan a project, select suitable yarn, calculate the warp specifications, warp a frame, interlink threads, and so on.

I put yarn on a frame in two colours.  I chose a flat sprang warp setup because I thought its best chance of arriving intact would come from having the yarn loop tightly around the sticks, and that means flat warp not circular.  I changed the arrangement of the colours from AABB to ABAB, so it will be clear to the recipient which threads go in the back and which in the front.  Then I tied up each cross with green yarn and tied the warp with blue yarn.  Here it is, ready to go in a padded envelope.

It cost less than two dollars to make and two dollars to mail, and it arrived quickly.