Symmetry is a, ah, well. Let's say that in the textile world... I think it's special.

Most of the things that we do, our basis is... yarn. Spun yarn. And now you probably already know where I'm going at: As soon as there's twist involved, or diagonals, there is no such thing as true symmetry. The twist in the yarn will always influence looks and behaviour of your piece.

In sprang, there's an additional element, because it's inherently symmetric - you are braiding on stretched threads, thus everything you do adds to your fabric twice, once on top and once on the bottom of the frame. Only... in the opposite direction. Which means you have the basic difference you get when you work with the same yarn in different diagonals.

Plus then you have the effect that you can place a heavy weaving sword at the bottom, while you are working at the top. Or even if you are not placing anything in your shed, you're usually working at one end, close to the fell, and that will tend to mess with the tightness of your previous braiding a little. Finally, if you have the top in a nice working position, the bottom might be in an awkward place, so you are doing your tightening with less useful visuals.

Long story short: It's surprisingly easy in sprang to end up with two pieces that are not the same size.

Which also means that I was pretty chuffed about how my two pieces turned out. If you like, you can try to guess which one was the top, and which one was the bottom bit in the frame! 

Finally! No, not only finally Friday (though that is welcome as well), but also I finally have... The Needle.

Years ago now. I was shown a needle found in Lorsch (which is an early medieval monastery). The idea, straight away, was to find someone who would make these for me so I could have them in my shop.

And as so often in the field, getting to the point took... longer. In that case, I think it was about 7 years. The process usually starts with getting enough information about the object (which was not the big thing in this case), then try and find someone able to do it, figure out if they are also willing to do it. Quite often, this is where you go back to square one because things don't work out due to whatever reason (don't want to do this, would do this but has no time, would do it but the price would be too high, would do it but cannot get the materials, or reason unknown because at one point I just don't get any answer back on my mails). 

Repeat from "try and find someone able to do it" as often as necessary. Then, once someone is found, you need to settle on a price, then I put in the actual order, and then... eventually... it's in the shop. 

As are these now: 

And if you're interested, you can find it here. (There's not much more information, but the magical button, in case you need one of them now...)

Aaargh. Sometimes I still manage to click that button necessary to do the blog publishing and not do the confirmation thingie. With the wonderful result of  the post, you may have guessed it, not going out. 

Which is, you may also have guessed it, what happened yesterday. You didn't miss much, though - I finally got around to doing a little maintenance stuff, such as sorting the new stamps, tidying up things in the main stock shelves, and checking if the amounts I have listed for this and that are still more or less correct, and if and what I have to re-order and re-stock.

The little cat, meanwhile, was making the most of the summer heat and has been napping in the wintergarden all day. The wintergarden, of all places, where even with as much shadow as the curtain-like roof thingies will provide and the doors open, it gets very warm. I jokingly refer to it as the cat oven in the summer. But, well, she insists (and could go somewhere cooler any time).

When I took a break and joined her, it was definitely no place where you'd want to do work of any kind. Napping, though... yes, that might work. Unfortunately there's still a few bits to take care of here on the desk! (Where it's also nice and cool compared to outside, so I have no real excuse to slack.) 

This morning, though, it was still cool enough that I could keep the cat company and do a little bit of sprang. I'm getting closer to the required length for the Lengberg cap, and it's really nice to work in that technique again.

One of the things I find fascinating is that sprang also shares that rhythm of "stuff can happen - nothing happens" that you also can get in tablet weaving, and that you sometimes have in knitting (when there's no pattern on the wrong side row and you only purl back). 

In sprang, you do your patterning in one row and then just confirm and get things nice and orderly in the following one. I have done sprang stuff before, but it was mostly solid things, partly with interlinking in the opposite direction and partly with double layers - but I have not worked with a larger hole pattern before. 

My guess before starting out on this would thus have been that with a heavily patterned sprang I will have one slower row (to read and follow the pattern) and one faster row (just go over everything to set up for the next slow one). I've found, however, that it's not as pronounced for me here as I would have guessed.

The main reason for that is... edges. Sprang, when done with the basic interlinking as the main structure, acquires a curl or twist after a while. That's just normal, and with a solid piece, it means you will have some curling, and thus potentially crossing threads, at the start and at the end. Which, coincidentally, is also where the usual selvedge effect happens and your threads are a little looser than the others. (That happens because they only have one neighbour, and thus don't get as nicely fixed down in the fabric, and there's also a little less take-up, so they can get longer compared to the others after a while. It's annoying, but can be found as an edge effect in many techniques.) 

So with a plain thing in sprang, done with only interlinking, I get slowed down a little at the start, where I have to take care the threads are in the correct order, and at the end, where there's the same issue. The rest is breezing through, more or less. With patterns in the sprang, though... Patterns in this case are made by working holes. And holes are, in fact, a right edge and a left edge happening in the middle of the fabric. 

These edges behave, for all practical purposes, like edges. That means they will also try to curl up a little. So instead of having two places where you have to pay a little extra attention, you now have as many extra places that will try to mess with your flow as you have holes. Actually... double the amount, as each hole has a left edge and a right edge.

I've measured time, and it does look like I am almost consistenly as quick doing the pattern row as the unpatterned one. I'm working with fairly little tension on the threads, which might make things a little more difficult sometimes, but definitely helps with getting a nice, tight interlinking. Quite often in sprang, there's rather big holes even in the (technically solid) base fabric; one reason for that is the use of sticks to save the previous sheds, just in case you made a mistake and have to go back. I haven't worked with sticks in a long time, but for the Lengberg sprang, it needs not only no sticks, but also enthusiastic pressing in of the new crossings. Which is made easier by having low tension on the threads, as they will be happier to stay crossed over and not stretch out again.

Very long story short: I am having fun. In both rows. Even though I don't appreciate the edges trying to be difficult.

So in case I have gotten you curious about sprang, but you have never really heard about it... let me introduce you to Carol James, who has done an insane amount of sprang in all imaginable shapes, sizes, and colours, and who does a very nice job of explaining holes, patterns, and her notation system (which is also how the Lengberg tree of life pattern is published): 

I spent a part of the long weekend (thanks to Pentecost) taking extra naps (thanks to a cold I managed to catch). As Murphy wills it, now that the weekend is over, I'm back to health again, and of course also back to work.

(Not really complaining here, though. Even though I could have done very well without the cold, at least the timing was only mildly annoying, slowing down the weekend, as opposed to horrendous, as in "could have hit me while abroad and needing all my brain and energy".)

Plus side of having some extra time to just sit and do stuff: I managed to do a little bit of sprang. The story behind it is that I might need to make a piece of sprang for a museum project, and that means I have to do at least a rough calculation on how much it will be, and that is, obviously, hard to do without a basis.

For things that I've done before, I have all the data written down and collected, so I know how long something takes when it goes smoothly (or, as it usually does in best case, mostly smoothly) and how long it will take if something explodes. (Figuratively, not literally.) Yes, I always take time measurements when working for work purposes. Yes, I still do it even once it's clear I am way beyond my initial estimate. Even if it hurts to see how much it's going off estimate - it will be really, really helpful for planning the next similar project.

(In case you are planning to track your work times now, too: My recommendation is a simple stopwatch to place at where you work. That way, you can pause whenever you get up for tea, or a phone call, or whatever - just in case it takes longer than planned and then you forget when you stopped.)

So now I'm spranging again. Last time was a good while ago, and this time I am supposed to follow a pattern to get, well, a pattern, so it was a little different. It took me a bit to get back into the flow and figure out how to get a fabric density similar to the original, but now I'm getting there. 

The threads are not optimal, but they have about the right thickness, and were what I had on hand quickly. 

As always with textile techniques, it pays to have a good, even set-up - differences in tension when doing the setup will mess with your work later on. And then...

There's a pattern to sprang, to the normal, very basic crossing pattern. It involves two threads from the front getting closer together as you pull one thread from the back, and then you split the pair and pull one more from the back and have a new pair to split. It's rhythmic and beautiful and mesmerising, and it only gets tricky if you have a tension issue, or if you get to the edge (where tension is normally a little bit off, too). This pattern will be persistent throughout work, only broken at edges (which includes edges of holes, making everything a bit more interesting). 

So basically, this means you have a running feedback on whether you are still correct, or if you have messed up. That requires adequate eyesight (very thankful for that!) and adequate light (thank you, Joseph Wilson Swan, Thomas Edison, and successors) and adequate concentration.

And then it's just... beautiful. It helps if you have a firm fabric, and if you take care to keep all threads nice and orderly, so I like to work close underneath the top fell. One of the hardest things, really, is now to stop in time before concentration wanes and I mess up, or to stop and do other things that need to be done. (I'm looking at you, bills I need to pay and orders I need to send out.)

By the way, my hack for getting an even warp when warping, or an evenly tensioned sprang setup: Don't tension your threads more than necessary to just keep them from sagging. You are measuring them off on a horizontal thingummy, so start with the thread completely slack and only tension it so it just goes straight. Continue with this technique throughout. 

Gravity helps you get it right here, because you always need the same amount of tension to just get it straight, no more. If you always adjust to that exact tension from slack, there's no danger of you building up more tension gradually as you are working - which is a rather common, if unwelcome, effect. In case you have accidentally tensioned more than desired (because your yarn stuck, for instance, and the ball/cone/reel/spool un-helpfully tensioned it for you), just let it go all slack, then re-tension to just straight. You do not need to make the set-up at the exact amount of tension that you want to have later! You can add all the tension you want or need for working with your  bits of string measured off this slacky way later on, and they will be deliciously even. Works with every technique where you do a set-up step measuring off threads that have to be the same length.

Today was definitely and undoubtedly an Aaargh! day. 

If you've been following this blog for a bit, you will be familiar with my search of a new image database to use instead of my old one, which is not supported anymore. Well. I had a go again yesterday at the migration process, looking at some possible pitfalls... and there was not just one, but two rather large ones. 

The first is the lack of support for videos. I asked in the support forum, and they'd like to add it, but that has not made it to the development timeline/plan yet... so whether it will come at all, or if so when, is unclear. That would have meant organising all the video files in a separate programme, or in a somehow separate way, which would have sucked.

The second one, though, was the absolute bummer. My current system relies on there being a watch folder; the programme, as the word implies, watches that folder and imports everything new into the database. No caption, no tags, obviously, only the exif data contents - but then I can go through the new files and finish giving them metadata. Tropy, the thing I thought would save all my problems, also allows you to set a watch folder. Unfortunately, though, it allows you the setting, but at least in my case it does not do the watching. None of the files in the watch folder appeared in the database. 

And that makes it a hard no, and a back to square one for me. 

So. Any of you has a hint on what programme runs locally, refers to an existing file structure without re-naming or shifting or copying files, supports video formats (at least to include them, internal viewer entirely optional), supports fuzzy dates (as in a date range, or only the year), has keywords/tags, and bonus points for it being free/open source or at least a single-pay license, and the possibility to sort into albums/boxes/lists or whatever virtual subgroups independent of the folder structure. Oh yes, and it should be possible to install, set up and run it without learning how to program first.

Sometimes it's really frustrating.

So... AI. You know, that ChatGPT guy and its colleagues.

There's quite a few things that I do think these helpers (because that's what they are) should not be used for, and I am not too happy about how some of them were trained. (Yes, I'm looking at you, illegal use of books for training, without informing or paying the authors.)

However... for some things, AI assistance can be really nice. A two-liner just helped me fix a website problem that I had, and my only complaint is that I should have done that earlier, as it would have saved me quite a bit of reading help files and trying to figure out what to do that needs to be done. 

My problem with code is that I can understand what I'd need to do from reading the help files, but I lack the basic knowledge to know what environment I need to do it. So... yeah. That's a slightly awkward place to get stuck in, by the way.

In this case, it was integrating a font in a special way - and my workaround only worked halfway, because one of the commands in the workaround just refused to do what it was supposed to do. Enter the Most Patient Husband of Them All, who let me explain the problem, tried to see if there was anything I had overlooked (yes, he did, but while that would have prevented the best code from running, it did not solve the non-existing sufficient code problem)... and then, as I was about to let it rest because I had already lost way more time than intended, he casually said something like "and this is actually where AI can be a real help, you tell it to write a php-file for you to do the job you need done, and then you only have to check if it's all okay and correct". Well. I can check code, I just can't write it. 

So, five minutes or so later... problem solved. 

(Another use that can be a real help, by the way, is translating chunks of text. You will still have to check to see if it's not weirdly wrong at some points, but it saves my dictionaries from a lot of wear and tear.)

And now I can try to actually get some other things done!