We exhibit the necessary range for which functions in the Sobolev spaces L s p can be represented as an unconditional sum of orthonormal spline wavelet systems, such as the Battle-Lemarié wavelets. We also consider the natural extensions to Triebel-Lizorkin spaces. This builds upon, and is a generalization of, previous work of Seeger and Ullrich, where analogous results were established for the Haar wavelet system.