Join your fellow weavers for fellowship, business, and show & tell, followed by a Zoom lecture on the big screen. Sprang is an ancient art for producing stretchy cloth on the simplest of looms and our speaker, Carol James, is one of its foremost practitioners. Learn the secrets behind the tights sported by the men of old.
"The Springy Art of Sprang"
What is sprang? How does it work? And what can you do with it? This presentation answers these questions and more. We begin with simple definitions and live demonstrations to help you understand how every row of work yields two rows of cloth. A variety of stitches lend themselves to this type of work, some even look like woven cloth. Diverse techniques transform simple rectangles into hats, socks, mittens, vests and more. We will then see this played out in a series of images of sprang through history. The presentation offers photos of actual sprang artefacts, ancient artwork, and Carol’s sprang replicas, taking us from the bronze age to present.
The presentation finishes will a focus on a particular project, Carol’s replication of sprang leggings. These garments were inspired by artwork of the ancient Greeks as well as Renaissance paintings. Carol has made several pair of leggings, exploring different aspects, and trying out different techniques to create wearable pairs of leggings. She occasionally remembers to photograph her struggles and successes, and will share her insights into this interesting aspect of garment-making for active humans.
This is a Zoom presentation, but Carol will ship sprang samples in advance so in-person attendees can see, touch, and stretch them. Don't miss this opportunity!
ABOUT CAROL JAMES:
Carol James has been playing with strings for a long time; she learned to embroider and to crochet before she entered kindergarten. Since the 1980s she has been exploring a wide, flat, braiding technique known in North America as fingerweaving. In the mid-1990s she was introduced to sprang. She is now a world-recognized teacher. She has spent the past 20 years rediscovering textile forms that had been considered lost, resurrecting these ancient techniques and making them accessible to every one through her publications, books and workshops. Visit her website at spranglady.com.
Carol believes that textile creation is part of our human heritage. Textile is an amalgamation of threads interconnecting with each other, just as humans work together in order to create the fabric of society. The method used to create fabric in disparate communities around the world is often quite similar. This is a common language of humans: the construction of fabric. Woven together we are stronger.