It's time for a summer break!  

I will take a break from the daily stuff to relax, visit with family and friends, and take care of some behind-the-scenes tasks that I never get around to doing during normal work time.

That means I will pause the blog and the shop for a bit; both will be back on August 18. 

Have a lovely, relaxing, not too hot summer time!

There's finally some rain falling outside, and I do hope it will be more than the scant litre we got the last two times. And of course it's raining now (because I lugged cans of water to the fruit trees this morning...)

In other news, there's not much news - I'm working on shop stuff to get everything that needs attention done before the upcoming summer break, the cat needs a new batch of food mixed (scheduled for tonight) and I have some prep and/or planning for upcoming events and workshops. So all is well so far.

(I also have a new filling in one of my teeth. So the others are not so lonesome. Which they wouldn't have been anyways... This is one thing where I, personally, am not of the opinion "the more the merrier" but unfortunately I didn't do well in the genetic lottery in regards to tooth material. That said - at least I live today, and can benefit from modern dentistry, making everything only a little annoying instead of really awful, incredibly painful and potentially life-threatening, and as an archaeologist, I've seen enough jawbones with gaping holes from tooth drama in them to be really grateful and appreciative of that.)

When I was posting about sprang recently... did I mention the density issue?

Really, really high density of some threads in a system seems to be a recurring topic for me. Brocades when tablet weaving is one of these things. The Lengberg sprang piece is another example.

Obviously, you will need to have the right size of threads (and the first piece I made had a little too thick threads, I think). But then, still, you have to achieve that really, really high density.

So just for my own personal fun, I made another trial piece setup, this time with slightly thinner threads. They are not as densely plied as the original, but I wanted to get going and not do some yarn hunting and plying first. First try with these was also a non-success, wit hthe rows running too wide. But now, I might be getting there: 

In the original, ten rows are about 1.3 cm. This is not just ten rows yet, but it's also under one centimetre wide. Which makes me hopeful, actually.

The trick was to work with very, very little tension on the threads for a start. After each row, I press in really, really hard with either a weaving sword or a c 1 cm diameter dowel. Both seem to work similarly well, with a little difference in how it feels when handling. 

I'm about 8 rows in on this piece from about 190, so it will definitely take a while longer to see if the results are consistent. But for now, I am quite amazed in how tight it is at the moment!

One of the things I've learned recently (of the category "oh, well, yes, seems logical, but I never really thought about it") is: Earwigs have wings. Some varieties use their pincers to help stretch out the wings, some varieties almost never fly, but they do have them, very neatly tucked up and folded under their tiny wing covers.

So if you're curious now, here's a video (with some more bonus flying critters):

... was done today, though I don't have nice photos to show yet. I've finished securing all open ends of all braided structures, and finished hemming all parts, and got started on the needle lace for the front.

And otherwise, there was a checkup to take care of, and a cat to cuddle (on the desk), and mails to send - so the usual, apart from one very weird paypal occurrence that actually needed a call to customer service. (With a very nice and helpful lady at the other end.)

And now I'd be ready for the weekend, if only that Friday worktime did not stand in the way ;) 

The Lengberg Cap with Sprang (which, by the way, has been nicely published, and you can find the article here) has the usual features of lots of medieval headwear: White linen and surprisingly narrow hems. In this case, it also features the sprang panel, and also...needle lace.

The needle lace connects the ties to the main part, and also is an embellishment of the front of the cap - so after hemming the individual pieces, and whip-stitching in the sprang panels, the next step will be making some needle lace.

Fortunately, the patterns are rather simple, and the originals don't have the same pattern on both sides of the tie connections, so I can go astray a little bit and it won't be too bad.

Meanwhile, that's the sprang panel seen from above, on a dark styrofoam head.  

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!