Structo Tips From Daryl Lancaster

Daryl Lancaster's blog relates how she rounded up 9 Structo looms to give a class in weaving. Structo made the little 4 harness looms that students would use to learn and test weaving patterns.

See some details on how she tunes up the looms for work.

http://weaversew.com/wordblog/2012/09/21/warp-speed/#comment-6020

Have a good day!

SWSG Sat Sept 2012

Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild Saturday Group met on Sept 15 2012 at Arcade Library on Marconi St. We opened the meeting with a review of the upcoming events. We also had a visit from club librarian Cheryl who brought some weaving books that were being culled from the club library as duplicates or not much demand. She also brought some rental equipment that members had reserved. Cheryl has been bringing things out for us in the Saturday Group since most of us cannot make it to the weekday meetings.

Today is also "Spinning 101" day for the library! We are giving free spinning lessons to the patrons of the library. We are teaching drop spindles. We got started and I put the camera down and forgot to pick it up again until we were almost finished so I do not have many pictures. So the library promoted the event and we had about 14 visitors with us. I had some drop spindles I made from dowels and wooden toy wheels. Linda Y brought some drop spindles made from CDs and dowels. Linda also brought some brown wool roving and some white wool roving. So the students could see how the brown and white twisted around.

 A couple of young women tried their hands on the drop spindles.

These women also learned a little bit about spinning today. We also had spinning wheels for them to see.

It was fun for the Saturday Group members to work with new spinners. Members just floated from person to person helping them by answering questions or showing how to hold their spindle.  It was also fun for our Guild to give back to the library which lets us use their meeting rooms every month.

Please visit our website for upcoming meeting announcements.
http://www.sacweavespin.org/saturday

It was a good day!

Egyptian Sprang Cap

 Egyptian Sprang Cap - CE 400 to 699 AD, Whitworth Art Museum, Manchester UK

So this is how a fiber adventure starts. Somebody created a Pinterest page of Sprang pictures
http://pinterest.com/rosemaryeskew/sprang/

I post the link on the yahoo group Sprang_List
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Sprang_List/

One of the questions asked was "does anyone have a clue how the yellow is incorporated into this Egyptian piece? seen alone here:"
http://emu.man.ac.uk/emuwebwag/objects/common/webmedia.php?irn=21756

Which is the cap pictured above. I would like to see the bottom edge but it is cropped out of the picture. I was poking around the the picture and it seemed like the yellow is a supplementary yarn.

If you would like to see how such a cap is constructed you should download this document (1.3MB MS Word Doc format)

http://www.ucl.ac.uk/museums/petrie/documents/Textiles_in_the_Petrie_Museum

It shows construction of common pieces of traditional Egyptian clothing. Including a sprang cap with twined edging. It even shows the gathering at the top and the rope securing it. So if twining is common maybe the yellow is supplementary yarn.

 So I enlarged and digitally enhanced the picture using a program called Photoscape. Above you can see the red/green creates the open mesh familiar as sprang. The yellow yarn seems to fill the gaps in the mesh created by the red/green yarn. I expect there are knots on the inside where the yellow yarn circles are made.

 Looking at enlargement near top of the cap you can see yellow stripes are part of the design. The top of the cap in this case is the "middle" of the sprang. So maybe the yellow yarns are carried along the inside of the cap, kind of like stranded knitting. It also looks like the yarns are somehow twined together then interlinked. This is a fascinating possibility of technique.

 Finally, I enlarged the right side edge to see how the side was sewn up. I can't see it very well, except that it appears to be less organized in that area than the rest of the piece.

So that is a short adventure in sprang. If you have any theories to share, feel free to comment.

Have good day!

EDITED TO ADD:
Sarah Goslee gave us this link on Sprang_List,
the yellow yarn kind of floats on the back side of the piece.

Collingwood describes it, and see also here:

http://www.angelfire.com/journal2/donisfuff/coptic.html

Kelsey Museum of Archaeology - 202 Sprang Specimens
To view click on link below, 
http://quod.lib.umich.edu/k/kelsey2ic?from=index;size=20;start=1;type=boolean;view=thumbnail;rgn1=ic_all;q1=sprang

Whitworth Art Musuem, click link below and enter "sprang" in search box
http://www.whitworth.manchester.ac.uk/collection/

SWSG Sat Aug 2012

Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild Saturday Group met on Aug 11 2012 at Arcade Library on Marconi St. We opened the meeting with a review of the upcoming events. Then we went around the circle with our "show and tell" period to catch up on each other's projects. I forgot my camera and had to use my phone camera. My apologies.

Upper left: Ardeth brought a rep weave made with rag weft. Upper right: Betsey brought a shawl she finished weaving. Lower left: Stephanie brought a cotton baby blanket she wove. Lower right: Lynn brought some little baby booties made with handspun angora rabbit fiber.

Then Connie gave us a class on Crochet basics.  Upper left: Connie in front of her multimedia presentation with computer videos to assist. Upper right: Lisa is experienced at crochet and cranks out the pattern easily. Lower left: Stephanie and Betsey work on the pattern. Lower right: I am making this look much more difficult than it is. I need a lot more practice. Also in attendance was Tanda, who could not stay long but she stayed long enough to learn how to crochet a simple edging for a dress she has knitted.

Connie also brought many samples of items crocheted as inspiration and evidence of the versatility of crochet. Also noted was the fact that crochet uses a lot of yarn making pieces weigh more compared to woven pieces of similar size. And yet crochet also creates fine lacy fabric.

One picture I did not get was of the awesome christening gown Connie is making. It is almost complete.

It was a good day!

Sprang Class Lambtown

I am scheduled to present a sprang class at Lambtown USA
Oct 6 2012, Dixon Calif.

We had a "test class" at my Saturday group and I'm confident I can get beginners started with a little sprang bag.

D-2 Sprang – A Twisted Adventure(2 hours)
Franco Rios
Saturday 9 am to 10:50 (pending)

Class description: “Sprang – A Twisted Adventure” is an introduction to the old string craft known as Sprang, which is a technique of interlinking yarns on simple frames to create an elastic fabric. Sprang was commonly used for different kinds of headgear, such as caps, hoods, bonnets, hairnets as well as for stockings, mittens, collars and sashes. Also for bags. Students will be introduced to the technique and shown how the sprang technique is worked on a small frame. At the end of the class student will have the makings for a small sprang bag. Materials for class will be provided. Students do not need to bring anything. All levels of experience are welcome.

Cost: $25
Experience: none .
Materials to bring: none

Class size limited to: 8, Will take walk in students up to the max of 8 students in class

See more classes at:

Go here to get application: http://www.lambtown.com/Applications/2011%20student%20registration.doc

SWSG Sat July 21 12

(Note: Click pictures for larger images)

Saturday July 21 2012 - Members of the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild - Saturday Group met at the library in Rancho Cordova, Calif. Above from left to right: Ardith tidies up some inkle loom bands, Vonnie talks about spindles, Janelle crochets with plarn, Linda S spins on drop spindle, Connie crochets a christening gown.

 

 Linda Y twirls and shows off a shrug she wove with yarns she dyed at our dye party at Cathy's house, while Susan W, Lynn, and Connie watch in background.

 Connie showed us the christening gown she is crocheting. She called it an "Irish Rose" pattern. Connie with also be teaching us crochet at our Saturday meeting in August.

 Left:: Janelle is crocheting a shopping bag with "plarn" made from plastic grocery bag strips, It sounds strange but the shopping bag she crochets will be many times stronger than the bags they come from. Center: Green yarn is handspun by Vonnie and you can see the texture you get with handspinning. Right: Ardith brought some bands she wove on her new inkle loom. These are just practice but I see some real potential in where she is going with this.

 Cathy has been away for a while and she brought some of the yarns she has dyed and plied for upcoming sweater project. She has been living in the Sacramento Delta area, a major waterway in Calif. She tells us the mineral content of the water in the sloughs changes the way her dye behaves. She also brought her book of "samples" of dying. She puts them in a book and labels them for reference so she can duplicate a color in the future.

Also present but not pictured Guild Librarian Cheryl  visited with us to swap out equipment we borrowed and bring us our Guild name tags. And Lisa is a guest who found us on the internet! She was looking for a Saturday fiber group.

 Our topic this month was Sprang! I want to give a Sprang class at Lambtown in October and so I practiced on my patient associates in the Saturday Group. Top pic: At home I prepared some sprang frames using plastic baskets, wood dowels and cotton yarn. I wound yarn around the cardboard 9 times and then cut it. That's how I measured yarn to have 8 turns and a little more to tie on with. Bottom pic: This is my larger version frame to use for demonstrating. Note: Little dogs are not impressed by sprang.

Above is some of the product of our sprang class. We had 10 people and I had 10 frames all made up ready to get your fingers into. We focused on basic sprang, nothing fancy. So I learned some things to overcome in future classes. Having the frames wound in advance was a great choice so people can get their fingers into it right away. The sticks to hold each row came from an IKEA placemat that I cut apart.

I am glad to have the opportunity to try this out on a group before I charge people to have a class with me. Not that I would charge a lot of money. Part of the class fee goes to Lambtown USA to support the event and I want folks to get their moneys worth.

NEXT MONTH: Connie is going show us how to CROCHET! But you are welcome to bring your spindles, wheels, and looms to show us what you are working on.

Visit the Sacramento Weavers and Spinners Guild web page for updates, meeting times, and places.
http://www.sacweavespin.org/saturday

Lambtown USA
Dixon, Calif
http://www.lambtown.com/index.html

Other places mentioned:
A Verb For Keeping Warm
Oakland, Calif
http://www.averbforkeepingwarm.com/

Purlsecence Yarns
Sunnyvale, Calif.
http://purlescenceyarns.com/

It was a good day!

Fast Sprang Frame

Testing an idea for a fast sprang frame. At the 99 cent store I bought a plastic basket

 (13.5 inch x 11.5 inch x 3.5 inch) , a bag of square dowels, and a ball of acrylic yarn.

I tied the dowels to the basket and wrapped yarn around with figure 8 wrap. The string on the left will the "safety string."

Sprang. Test complete. Cost of materials $3

NOTE: Try using loops of elastic to attach sticks to frame, but allow elastic to stretch. That would allow sticks to pull closer together as work progresses.

Have a good day!