In early October I attended History Fest in Makato, MN, camping on site for four days. Thousands of students, with parents and teachers, came through to experience various aspects of history. My husband was one of the sword fighters putting on a show to draw in the crowds. Before and after the shows a few folks stayed around to check out the artisans surrounding the fighting field. They could visit the seamstress, gather around an open hearth and sample food made over the fire, watch chainmail being made, have a coin struck just for them, explore a scout’s camp, and learn about calligraphy. And that’s just in our corner of the site.

I brought a few sprang items to show and several frames to work on. Even with a small sampling of my work, some of the children were amazed that I had made “all this” myself. The people who stopped to talk, mostly homeschooling moms and their kids, were fascinated by this technique they had never heard of. A few left determined to learn it themselves. I fell in love with demonstrating sprang and vowed to continue doing so at every opportunity.

A couple weeks ago I was able to demonstrate and sell at the Duluth Fiber Guild’s annual Fiber Fair. Again I had a great time explaining and showing off this ancient technique, and a few people had a try at my practice frame. While it’s hard to part with some of my favorite sprang experiments, it was a joy to hear the excitement from those who appreciated the pouches they purchased.

This past weekend I attended Boar’s Head, a large Northshield event held near Milwaukee, WI. While Hubby poked at people in the rapier tournament, I sat at my merchant’s table working at my frame and talking to all who stopped by. In this setting full of folks immersed in the Middle Ages, sprang is known by some as an historical technique so I was able to compare notes with other sprangers. Again I enjoyed seeing people interact with my creations, and parted ways with several favorite pieces.

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A year ago I answered a call for Arts and Sciences projects for Northshield’s new queen to give as tokens of appreciation. She asked for each participant to create ten similar items. I used it as an opportunity to explore the surface texture created when the direction of stitches changes from a forward slash or Z lean to a backslash or S direction. I had just started playing with these S&Z textures and was eager to create ten different patterns and turn each sample into a small pouch.

I had no interest in writing the patterns down as I worked, happy to create one-of-a kind pouches. But then I ran into some geometrical questions that I couldn’t wrap my head around without seeing it on paper. And after writing that first chart out I realized that I DID want written patterns for the other designs, and that I quite enjoyed the process of putting marks on paper.

For the past year the patterns have been piling up on my desk and I’ve been working through (and adding to) my yarn stash. I have created a range of new labyrinth patterns, participated in Carol James’ SprangAlong year of lace patterns, and assisted Carol in producing a new book of sprang lace patterns. We’ll look at the various projects in future posts and see what I learned from them. Much of the learning came things that didn't go as planned.