Garment Experiment #1 - and the source

Well, I am still weaving and spranging (is that a word?) the "cartouche" piece, but I realized that I never posted a picture of the finished garment #1.  Here it is, a tunic top with sprang yoke/shoulders, and a sprang decorative hem feature.

It is in 10/2 cotton, plain weave pinstripes.  The hem sprang inset was done while the fabric was still on the floor loom.  The yoke portion uses only every other warp yarn.  The unused warps were woven into a little facing that I pressed back.  The sprang for the yoke had to be done after the piece was taken off the loom.

I did not originate the idea for this top, or the current piece I'm working on.  The concept came from an article in the January 1979 issue of The Weaver's Journal.  The cover features a sprang shrug.

This magazine, along with a gold mine of other old weaving-related publications, is available for free download at handweaving.net .

The article is titled "Sprang and Frame Plaiting for Garments", and at the end of the article there are some "other suggested uses of sprang and frame plaiting".  To my knowledge, any implementations of these suggestions were never published.  I think they go well with the other trials I've been doing combining loom-weaving with sprang, so I thought I would try them out.

My top is like the one labeled "dress with plaited shoulders" below.  The plan for my cartouche piece is for it to have a sprang waist like the drawing to the right.