Adventures in Fibre Arts

Sprang is an ancient technique for making fabric. The type of fabric it makes is very stretchy. It’s almost like a chain link fence.

I learned sprang a couple of years ago and it was a fun technique. I started doing some more research and found a couple of projects to try out. The first one is a woolen hairnet and then try a bag made of sprang (based on a possibly interpretation of bag handles found at Hedeby which had scraps of wool).

The sprang frame I have is very simple and made of PVC pipes.

Warping up is very simple. Just wind out the wool between two pegs

I found a couple of issues with my simple weaving frame. And it’s all to do with tension. The first problem is the frame itself. Because I didn’t glue it together and transported it a lot the frame came apart a couple of times. As a result it came unsprung.

I tried a second time being more careful. However because I took a long time to do the weaving and I had troubles backing off the tension between sessions the wool stretched and caused other tension issues.

I will try it again one day, but first I need to get (or make) myself a better sprang loom. The style I have my eye on is an Osberg Sprang Loom. But that’s for another blog post…