Sprang hairnet

Sprang is a technique of making a fabric on a vertical frame using only warpthreads. The warp is fixed around a cord at the upper and lower end of the frame. The threads make crossings with each other by pulling the back ones to the front and dropping the front ones to the back. Because the warp threads are fixed at both the top and bottom the pattern occur at both ends at the same time. The technique gives a stretchy, very netlike structure and was therefore used for hairnets, among other things. The technique has been used when a stretch fabric was required.

The technique can create a very tight weave, especially if they were made by wool. This technique is very old. The period which these hairnets flourished lies between c. mid-4th and mid-8th century AD, according to a publication made by the British museum. Sprang fragment found in excavations were often thought to be woven.

But! The sprang technique was not uncommon during the 16th Century either. In Olaus Magnus Historia om de nordiska folken from 1555 the nordic woman is praised for her knowledge about textile work and especially the "whitework, that is called sprang" (my translation).

There is also examples from the artworld, a lady working on what could be a sprangframe in a Lucas Cranach painting. This is a part of a painting called Education of the Virgin Mary and was painted between 1510-1515.

There is also this drawing " Planet Venus and her children", from the early 16th century, shown in the book Die textilen Künste, by Leonie von Wilckens. Its a lady that is possibly doing sprang on a sprangframe.

I attended a net knotting class at an SCA-event almost a year ago. It was fun but it did not really feel like something that I would put the effort needed in to master. But sprang could be something that I could do! So for a handicraft exchange I asked a friend to make me a sprang frame.

I saw this picture on pinterest and thought that she was working on a sprang frame. And I showed my friend that was going to make the frame for me.

She is not.

She is doing sprang on a weaving loom from the Osebergsship.

The pictures comes from here.

That was not what I thought I asked for. But to have a copy of the weaving loom from the Osebergsship is not bad either...

And it is obviously possible to do sprang on it too...

Here is my frame.

After I got it home it did not take long before I tried it out. I started with a small warp with 30 wool threads.

At first I did not understand the meaning of the sticks. Until I made and error, and because of my lack of stick I needed to redo the whole thing. The sticks helps you separate the warpthreads and you could just take up the latest part you did wrong. If you do something wrong you will see it in the next round or in the next after that. Therefore, use the helpsticks.

Next try went better.

It worked fine, but there is a couple of errors in it.

How long do you think I waited until I put up another? It was...maybe 15 hours.

This time I tried linen. 60 threads. And I made it longer. If it worked I might be able to use my trial and error-piece for something.

The helpsticks is good to make the rows even too. Here you can see it clearly, when I made a row without one.

It worked! There is a couple of errors in this one too, mostly around the edges. For the next one I need to be more careful, to see that all the threads is in order. But it is actually big enough to make a net out of it.

A good thing with this technique is that you dont need a speciall frame for it. Any kind of squared frame would do.

Hairnets were common among the higher social classes of the 16th century in Germany and nearby countries.

Here we see one on Queen Ann of Hungary and Bohemia.

And one on this lovely lady painted by Christop Amberger 1522.

And here from a drawing made by Urs Graf 1514.

I dont know who this lady is but she is so clearly show that it is possible to have a wulst underneath so I wanted to show her picture anyway.

Im not saying all of these hairnets are made by the sprangtechnique but I say that it possible to make nets with it. And that it was done.

So, out of my squared piece of linen sprang I made a hairnet. Many of the ladies in the paintings looks like they have a wulst underneath. This theory is also presented in the article Nets-Knots-Lace Early 16th century headdress from East Tyrol by Beatrix Nutz. So I made a separate one that is possible to use under a see-trough net.

 

I made a fingerloop braid to pull three of the sides of the net together and ty it around my head.

Next time Im going to try to make the net smaller, both the whole garment but also the holes in it. And maybe try a more difficult pattern! And threads that are a bit more stiff, the net is a bit soft and dont get the exact look. Maybe some kind of metalthread.

Sources:

https://www.academia.edu/5403707/Sprang_Hairnets_in_the_Katoen_Natie_collection?sm=b

https://www.academia.edu/24731033/Radiocarbon_dating_of_linen_hairnets_in_sprang_technique?sm=b

https://www.academia.edu/37891586/ATMSII_Linen_Sprang_from_Lengberg_Castle.pdf

http://www.stringpage.com/sprang/sprang1.html

http://housebarra.com/EP/ep07/11sprang.html

Tutorial http://honorbeforevictory.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/sprang-tutorial-handout.pdf

https://sashweaver.wordpress.com/tag/sprang/page/3/ Socks!

http://www.spranglady.com/blog/previous/3

Nets-Knots-Lace Early 16th century headdresses from East Tyrol by Beatric Nutz.

Die Rekonstruktion eng anliegender Bekleidung aus Antike und Renaissance by Dagmar Drinkler

Historia om de nordiska folken by Olaus Magnus

Språngning by Tine Abrahamsson