By Carol James
Carol James grew up in an environment where she learned a number of textile techniques. Her mother was of Bavarian-Austrian extraction, and taught her to embroider and crochet at an early age. By the time she was in high school she was knitting socks and gloves, and had taught herself tatting and traditional Norwegian Hardanger embroidery. In her 20s she met someone from Quebec who told her about fingerweaving.
Fingerwoven sash by Carol James, inspired by sashes made by the ladies of Assomption, Quebec, for the fur trade. Photo: Carol James
While living in Winnipeg, Manitoba, in the 1990s, Carol came to be known for that fingerweaving technique. It is the method to make sashes used by several distinct groups of that area. Volunteering at diverse historic sites in and around Winnipeg, she was given the name SashWeaver.
At one event she encountered individuals who specialized in military re-enactment from the late 1700s and early 1800s. Seeing that she was called the Sashweaver, one of the military re-enactors commented that they were in need of a special kind of sash for their uniforms. Could Carol make sprang sashes for them? Carol responded with the question, “What’s sprang?” This was the beginning of a great deal of exploration into an almost forgotten textile method.
Note the sprang-woven belt on the soldier to the right. Photo: Carol James
Carol quickly found that sprang is a very adaptable textile technique. Peter Collingwood describes it as “a method of making fabric by manipulating the parallel threads of a warp that is fixed at both ends” (Collingwood pg 31). Sprang works well with a variety of textile structures, including interlinking, interlacing, and intertwining, and it was used in the past to create a wide variety of garments including bonnets, shirts, leggings, and sashes.
The portrayal of Jacob Fugger by Albrecht Drürer led Carol to think that Mr Fugger wore a sprang bonnet, so she used sprang for a similar bonnet. See Carol’s blog post, “Jacob Fugger’s Bonnet.”
To better understand how sprang works, you might want to watch Carol’s video. See samples of items made with sprang, and make a sample yourself.
Evidence of sprang dates to pre-historic times. Bonnets in this type of structure have been found in association with human remains in peat bogs in Scandinavia dating to 1300 BC. The technique was known in ancient Greece, Rome, as well as ancient Egypt. Paintings from the Renaissance would indicate that sprang was known across Europe. Indeed in modern times the Norwegian Government has added sprang to its Rødlista (red list) of endangered craft techniques, attesting to its cultural significance.
A half-mitten in sprang owned by the Norske Folkemuseum. https://digitaltmuseum.no/011023151981/vott-halvvante.
The disappearance of the sprang technique from common usage in Western Europe roughly coincides with the Industrial Revolution. Cloth production shifted from individual artisans weaving with their shuttles, one row at a time, to unskilled workers producing large quantities of cloth in factories. Much knowledge was lost when the skilled weavers could no longer make a living at their looms. Sprang seems to have been one of the techniques that no longer seemed necessary to remember.
Carol was introduced to two books in the public library:
Skowronski, Hella & Reddy, Mary. (1974) Sprang Thread Twisting, a Creative Textile Technique. New York, NY: Van Nostrand Reinhold Co.
Collingwood, Peter. (1974) The Techniques of Sprang: Plaiting on Stretched Threads. London, UK: Watson-Guptill Publications (Faber and Faber).
It was a steep learning curve, but Carol eventually figured out a way to make sprang sashes for the military re-enactors. She found that the technique could be adapted to far more than sashes. She was inspired by an image in a book by Dutch textile artist Fenny Nijman, Sprang – Egyptisch vlechten. Vlechten met gespannen draden (Sprang – Egyptian Braiding: Braiding with Tensioned Threads), Wageningen, 1977.
Carol James’ re-enactor friend, an artillery enthusiast, wanted a silk officer’s sash with a cannon design. So she drew up a cannon and mapped it out on graph paper. Read more in this blog post: “Sprang Military Sash.” Photo: Carol James
By this time Carol was rather well known for her skill with fingerweaving. A local museum had asked her to teach fingerweaving classes. Carol began by writing handouts for her students. Her students encouraged her to publish the handouts as a how-to book. That was the genesis of the book Fingerweaving Untangled: An Illustrated Beginner’s Guide Including Detailed Patterns and Common Mistakes, 2008.
Encouraged by the success of Fingerweaving Untangled, Carol set out to apply the same instruction method to the sprang technique, and authored the book Sprang Unsprung: An Illustrated Beginner’s Guide Including Detailed Patterns and Common Mistakes, now in its second edition.
In the early 2000s, Carol found herself traveling to spread the word about these braiding techniques, fingerweaving and sprang. Aways seeking new places to host her classes, Carol’s friend and Ohio lace instructor Tracy Jackson recommended Carol pitch her Introductory Sprang class to Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum in Decorah, Iowa. Curator Laurann Gilbertson was very supportive of the idea. This is how Carol came to teach sprang at Vesterheim in the spring of 2018. Beyond learning the technique, and teaching within the walls of Vesterheim, it was agreed between Carol and Ms Gilbertson that the students would benefit from viewing the collection. The various sprang lace pieces were displayed on a table, and the students were allowed a close-up examination. Back in the classroom Carol decided this could be an excellent teachable moment, and used the pieces to show students a way to derive written lace patterns from the original pieces.
Carol has travelled across the US and Europe and has viewed a rather large number of sprang items. With permission from curators, she has photographed many of them for her study. She has replicated the motifs from many of these pieces, and always intended to publish her sprang patterns. The silver lining of COVID for Carol was that it allowed her to focus on writing sprang patterns to the point that she has managed to publish several volumes of sprang lace patterns.
Among the titles of Carol’s sprang lace pattern books you will find Sprang Patterns and Charts Inspired by Samples in the Collection of Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum. Laurann Gilbertson wrote an introduction for the book and contributed information on the provenance of the individual pieces. Each sprang lace pattern was tested by Carol’s sprang apprentice and fiber artist Sharon Wichman. Many were the discussions between Carol and Sharon concerning the complexity and variations among the various patterns. This led them to the decision to include comments from the sample maker, with her insights gained while working through these patterns. This volume celebrates the sprang lace collection of Vesterheim and hopes to render the pieces more accessible to the public.
This book can be ordered from the Vesterheim Norwegian-American Museum bookstore, here.
Carol has created a variety of garments, hats, scarves, fingerless mittens, vests and more using the sprang technique.
Carol visited the Kelsey Museum collection in the spring of 2016 and afterwards made a hat based on a tattered one from the collection.
Carol’s dream is that sprang will become better known. Her challenge to you, dear reader, is that you will take up sprang. Perhaps one day, in addition to spinning, weaving, Hardanger, and embroidery, there will be a significant display of sprang at the biennial National Norwegian Folk Art Exhibition in Decorah, Iowa.
Carol James, February 2023
www.spranglady.com
Instagram: @spranglady
Resources:
James, Carol. (2016). Sprang Unsprung, Second edition. Winnipeg, Canada: Author. Available in English or French through Spranglady.com. Ebook available through TaprootVideo.com
James, Carol. (2016). Sprang Lace Patterns. Canada: Author. Available through Spranglady.com. Ebook available through TaprootVideo.com
James, Carol. (2017) Introduction to Sprang [DVD]. Seattle, WA: Taproot Video. Available as DVD or streaming through TaprootVideo.com
James, Carol. (2020). “Sprang: Planning the work and working the plan.” Strands Vol. 27, pp 8–14. London, UK: The Braid Society. Article explaining Carol’s method to chart sprang lace patterns.
James, Carol. (2021). Sprang Lace Patterns Inspired by Dutch Sashes: 77 Patterns Charted and Written by Carol James. Winnipeg, MAN. Spranglady.com, Ebook available through TaprootVideo.com.