This chapter presents a reflection on the important contribution skilled artisans offer towards a better understanding of historic textiles and their manufacture, by focusing on a discussion about the braiding textile technique known today as sprang. Briefly put, scholars who research and write about textiles benefit significantly when they interact with people who create textiles. Avoiding this step can result in misrecognition, and a less-than-robust understanding of the textile and its context, if key aspects of construction and identification, details that are not always apparent through inspection, are missed. By exploring the reconstruction, and therefore the construction of a textile, researchers may gain insights into new diagnostic markers, as, for instance, aspects that might seem merely decorative to the non-specialist may be revealed, by the reconstruction, to be structural devices of shaping, short cuts, repairs, or mistakes by the maker. Going beyond these essential technical details of textile construction, reconstruction can reveal diverse aspects of daily life, particularly the necessary skills, space and equipment required to construct a certain textile. In short, collaboration between historical textile researchers and skilled textile reconstruction artisans, in this case in the study of sprang-construction textiles, opens doors to insights not always available through the inspection and study of textile samples alone.

The chapter begins with a brief overview of the techniques, history and geographical distribution of sprang-created textiles. It then moves on to discuss some of the insights I have gained through the act of creating replicas of historic textile items in conjunction with American and European museums, based on items from their collections that have been identified as having been produced using the sprang technique. In doing this, I will give examples of where my understanding of decorative options and structure changed dramatically as my work on a particular piece progressed, suggesting some of the insights that textile reproduction can offer to textile studies. Finally, I will discuss the importance of delivering workshops and lectures, the opportunities for collegiality these offer and the benefit some textile professionals might derive from attending them.