I was invited to teach sash-weaving techniques in The Pas.
Sharain Jones from the Sam Waller Museum received funding from the Moffat Family for arts programming, and invited me to come. I gave a workshop at the Sam Waller Museum last night, and at the Scott Bateman Middle School today. The world now has over 100 new weavers here in ThePas, Manitoba.
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Attended the University of Winnipeg’s Centre for Rupertsland Studies, presenting a paper on sprang. Met some amazing researchers, learned lots more about the Fur Trade. All that sitting and demonstrating, I made several sprang purses. I’ve also been working on another silk military sash.
Starting with a 13 ft warp, I now have an 11 ft sash. Two feet of ‘shrink’ on this one. I’ve heard of pieces of sprang cloth that start out as warp set between two pieces of tablet weaving, and wanted to try it myself. I started two pieces of tablet weaving and then solicited help from a friend. We sat at my table and each of us worked on one of the bits of tablet weaving. As we worked we passes another weft, a plum-colored silk, back and forth across the five-and-a-half feet that separated us. Keeping the tension even on the plum colored warp was a bit of a trick. We tried several things. What seemed to work best was a combination of supporting the threads in the middle, and attaching a rod (knitting needle) on the outside edge of the tablet weaving to hold the plum colored threads evenly. Here’s the tablet weaving up close: The tablet weaving completed, I hung it on my sprang frame and ‘spranged’ it. Yes, it was a bit of a reach at first. I worked each row in sections, and used a long dowel to hold each row. Each row was then shifted down towards the lower tablet-woven band. Now I’ll have to get someone to photograph me in my new sprang shirt!
Quite a while ago I started a pair of socks. The warp’s been hanging off the backside of my kitchen door, waiting while other more pressing projects have attracted my attention. Now it’s time to finish those socks. Now, sprang is quite elastic, but not so elastic that the same tube allows for my ankles as well as for my calfs. Once finished, I confess, I ‘unwove’ a thread at the back, and inserted a ‘gusset’ of more threads. The socks were finished off by tying the threads in bunches of four. I am quite impressed that there is no need for elastic. The socks stay up just fine without elastic at the top
Inspired by Franco Rios, as well as a former student, I’ve made a hat. The method used means the project can easily be stowed in a commuter bag, and worked on the bus. I cut pieces of handspun into 17 pieces, each 36 inches long: eight pink, one white, eight pink. So, I was working with 17 x 2, that is to say 34 threads. I decided I like this pattern. I can count rows by the number of white hatches that appear, one set of hatches for every two rows. Decrease by tying threads together in pairs. I tied off two pairs every second row, and cut the ends short. Six sets of decreases were worked, that is removing 24 threads, and ten were left. I worked those ten for two rows, and then set the piece aside. I worked nine such pieces, and then sewed them together. To match the white-stripe pattern, I used another strand of the same white thread. I sewed up one side of the strip before joining.
Be careful to keep the knots of the decreases all on the same side (inside) of the hat. I set up my 4-harness loom for this year’s Festival. We’re commemorating the 200th anniversary of the arrival of the Selkirk Settlers. They attempted to build an income spinning the hair of bison and weaving it into cloth. The local weavers guild agreed to help me weave brown cloth. I set up my loom. Meanwhile outside they were preparing the snow sculptures. This woman came to see me. She learned fingerweaving from my book. She’s also made herself a sprang hat. She said she made it in strips, and sewed them together. She wove the strips for about 4 inches, then began tying the strings off in pairs, hiding the knots inside the hat. This created the ‘decrease’. Remaining strings formed the tassel. She was very pleased with the way you can make a perfectly invisible seam.
I find her work ingenius, and really like this hat! I’ve worked sprang without a loom, trying different methods. Well, to begin, here are two frames that I like for the ease of construction and minimal cost. The first is very like an Archie Brennan frame. It’s plumbing pipe, elbows, threaded rod and nuts. At the hardware store, if you ask for half-inch pipe, also ask for half-inch threaded rod.
I’ve been known to attach to my kitchen door. Here I’m working on a pair of socks, two socks created at the same time. I work at a comfortable height, and shove each row upwards and then downwards. A moment of weakness in a local yarn shop had me purchasing a skein of lace weight silk&baby camel. Marrakesh is the name on the skein, Swiss Mountain Silk. I’ve made it up into two of scarfs for exhibit purposes.
A student brought a frame to class. I like it a lot. I got my son to make me such a frame and find it sturdy as well as flexible. For longer projects I can just get longer dowels.
I recently finished up another of those silk officer sashes.
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