Firfletting - is it sprang?

Firfletting is a rare textile technique from Norway.  I found this when Katherine Johnson sent me a link to a video from the Norsk Folkemuseum.  It is so exciting to find something new that I can do with my huge stash of yarn and string.

I am writing about firfletting without much knowledge.  I have only just found it this week.  I think it is a kind of braiding, but it looks a lot like sprang.  Looks like bobbin lace, too.  Somebody defined sprang as braiding on stretched warp threads.  But firfletting appears to be sprang worked with loose ends - the warp threads not stretched nor secured...  I wish Peter Collingwood were alive.  He would be able to say whether firfletting is a kind of sprang or not.

I saw a Wikipedia enrty (which one?  Maybe it was the page about sprang?) that gave a definition of braiding.  It pointed out the difference between braiding and weaving...  I think it said that weaving needs separate warp and weft threads, but in braiding, the threads can...  I forget.

I started collecting pictures of firfletting on my Pinterest page.  There is an old magazine article from the 1980's - maybe my library could get it for me.  The title was something like, "Firfletting - Fringe Braiding From Norway."  Many of the examples of firfletting that I found on Pinterest are complex fringed linen towels.  They could have been woven in pairs so that the fringe might be worked as sprang.  But, in the video, there is a woman doing firfletting on one towel  -so not sprang...?

There are a bunch of really old movies from the Norsk Folkemuseum.  I'm hoping to find more lost arts in those videos.

Poison Ivy

I feel ichy.  I have a big bad poison ivy rash.  The rash would be gone if I stopped scratching.  Surely it will end soon since it started about a month ago.  I don't need sympathy, it's fine really.

I got into the poison ivy because I wanted to remove it from my daughter's school.  The ball field is surrounded by poison ivy.  I'm thinking of buying a goat.  The goat will eat the poison ivy, and the children will not get itchy when their soccer balls roll off the field.

So, yesterday I went to work in a beautiful new garden beside the lake.  Brand new,,freshly set out garden, fabulous view of lake and mountains, fine new house AND poison ivy.  I felt the need to remove the weeds.  But this time, I'm going to try coating the plant with something to contain the poison oil.

Last time, I coated my skin with a heavy grease.  It worked.  Except that I did not coat my knees since I thought my pants sufficient protection.  Poison ivy must have a volatile oil because it went right through my pants, leaving nice black spots.  I am quite proud of those jeans now.  The poison washed away with only one laundering.  But the black ink spots remained.  I would so love to meet India Flint and tell her about this.  I bet there is a way to use poison ivy to make fantastic textile art.

The missing information is how to use the poison ivy without suffering from the contact dermatitis.  We know how to make black ink from poison ivy, but not how to get rid of the poison oil.  I'm going to try pressing fabric and poison ivy in a flower press.  Should be possible to use the leaves to print on Yemeni fabric for scarves.

Just suppose they boiled away the poison in the old days...?  It could carried away by the steam, if it really is volatile.  You would start a camp fire, and stand way back when the water.eventually starts to boil.  Maybe that would explain why they use steam to process lacquer made from a poison ivy relative in Asia.  I tried to find information about this lacquer but I can not read the Japanese web sites.  But I have seen the lacquer and it is excellent.  I would like to be brave and reinvent the lacquer.  Everyone thinks I am crazy and obsessed with something dangerous.