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journal |
October 2002 |
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10-1-02 Yesterday I cooked up cattail head fluff to make sheets for book covers. This paper looks so much like pigskin, it seems appropriate for that purpose. Pulled sheets till the vat ran low, added some leftover hemp pulp and pulled sheets till that ran thin. Added velvet leaf/black willow and pulled sheets, then added eucalyptus and pulled till the vat totally ran out of pulp. (I’m still desperate to clean out the refrigerator.) All of the mixtures made excellent paper, but they would, since all were excellent quality pulps to begin with. The only question was whether the appearance of the mixtures would work, and they did. As a side note regarding the cattail heads — do not store the heads in an enclosed container unless certain they are completely dry. When I had company several weeks ago, I pitched recently gathered heads into a plastic bag and stuffed them out of sight. I opened the bag yesterday and discovered that they were beginning to mold. If I had thought, I would have known not to bag them, but I don’t always think. The mold didn’t affect the pulp, but there wasn’t much of it. Don’t know what would have happened had it been worse. 10-2-02 Pulled 24 sheets of agrimony, then dried the rest of that pulp. That pretty well empties the refrigerator. Hurricane Lili should be bringing us rain for the next few days, so I wouldn’t be able to pull anything even if I did have pulp. I’ll likely clean out and organize the closet that holds dried pulp and dried plant materials. Need to take an inventory so I’ll know what I do have on hand. 10-4-02 Stopped by the Arts Council and shot a better picture of the piece I have on exhibit there. 10-5-02 So, my refrigerator is empty of pulp now, something I’ve been working toward for a month. And what do I do? I go out and harvest milkweed, Johnsongrass and mistflower. Papermaking is a sickness. The milkweed has dropped its leaves now, and even were there monarchs this year, it would be safe to harvest. Gathered so many plants, the stalks required two pots to steam for stripping. The mist flower is the wild variety of hardy ageratum and is far taller than its cultivated cousin. Cooked the stems for three hours while I was working up the milkweed. I had gathered the mistflower more or less in desperation. There are few plants growing this time of year that I’ve not tried. In the field the stems appeared as if they would yield fiber easily enough, but that was before I started cooking them. After two hours of cooking, they had not softened at all, and after three, I simply turned them off. They’ll sit in the pot until tomorrow, then we’ll see. I only gathered enough to try in the blender, so little will be lost if the stems don’t break down. As for the Johnsongrass, normally it is tough and beginning to dry at this time of year, but the patch I found had been mowed a few weeks ago and was springing up fresh and green, far too tempting to leave. I’ll cook and process it and the milkweed tomorrow. 10-6-02 Washed and processed the mistflower stems in the blender first thing this morning, but they wouldn’t make paper, at least, not that way. After blending for one minute, they were still far too coarse and had little fine material to slow the draining or actually form the paper. I have little doubt the stems would make paper if processed in a beater, but I didn’t have enough to warrant that. Instead, I bleached them (they were an ugly shade of olive) and will use them as an inclusion in something. One interesting thing was the bast from the mistflower. It was lovely and silky, just not enough to make it worthwhile to gather and strip. It’s a shame. **Cut, cooked and processed the Johnsongrass in the blender. I’ve done it in both the blender and the beater, and this is one plant material that I really prefer to process in the blender. The pulp was a deep poison green, and I bleached it because I wanted a thin parchment like paper. Johnsongrass, like Kentucky bluegrass, does this beautifully. After I finished bleaching the pulp, I noticed that I’d failed to pour out and drain the last batch from the kitchen blender. Okay...so tomorrow I’ll mix that with the bleached mistflower stalk pulp and we’ll see what that will do. Johnsongrass is exceptionally slow about draining; the mistflower drained far too quickly. This should be a good match. **Cut and cooked the milkweed bast and left it sitting in the pot for tomorrow. 10-7-02 Thought this was going to be one of those “best laid plans” days. Got sidetracked more times than I liked. Did manage to pull the green Johnsongrass/mistflower mixture, though I ended up having to use some of the bleached Johnsongrass with it, as well. Without that, there was too much inclusion for the amount of fine pulp. It’s still too heavy on the inclusion, too light on the fine binding fibers to be called paper, but it can be used in a decorative situation where no stress will be involved. **Rinsed, ran the milkweed through the blender, then bleached the pulp. I’ve done milkweed in midsummer, early fall and late fall. Of all the times, midsummer bast produces by far the cleanest pulp. The later in the year the plant is harvested, the more dark flecks will be in the pulp. These come from the scarred, damaged and dying spots on the bark/bast. It’s possible, once the pulp is cooked, to pick these out, but it is a job and a half if there are many. I chose to leave them this time and consider them “points of interest” in the paper. Yeah. That sounds good...points of interest. 10-8-02 Pulled a few sheets of the milkweed to see how dirty it would be, but it’s really quite nice. Put the rest of the pulp in the refrigerator. My houseguests will just have to cut me slack. 10-9-02 Beat a ream of computer paper for Friday’s Children’s Art Project at the Kentucky Guild Fair. I’m not directly involved with the project (don’t do kids), but I am willing to do the background work for their papermaking project and take the pictures of the kids pulling on Friday. 10-10-02 This has little to do with paper, but everything to do with my life over the next few days. Bear with me. It is art related, and since the journal this month is shorter than normal, I feel free to add non-paper snippets of life around here. It began raining early yesterday evening, rained all throughout the night and all through the day today...hard at times. As of this evening, we’ve had something like 6” of rain. Guess what. It’s Kentucky Guild Fall Fair time again, and I’m a fulltime volunteer during the event. Dug out my calf-top boots and rainsuit and went out at noon to help several friends set up in the rain and deliver the paper pulp. Thank goodness it wasn’t cold, because I was soaked to the skin by evening. Ate at PapaLeno’s this evening with my husband, several craft friends and my sister-in-law, Marybeth, who has arrived to spend five days. Good thing the restaurant is laid back. We played come as you are, royally attired in muddy boots and soggy clothing. 10-11-02 Went out early to help with the last minute details The show is held alongside a winding paved pathway up through the woods at the Indian Fort Theater. After six plus inches of rain, vehicle tires do interesting things to woods dirt. That’s Jimmy Lou Jackson, one of the finest glass bead artists in the state. (There were rumors that an exhibitor’s truck sank here, but it’s mere speculation...mere speculation.) The rain finally ended shortly after the show opened, and the day really wasn’t half bad. Took digital shots of the kids pulling paper, painting with watercolor and watching a puppet show. The pictures will go into a Power Point presentation to be used in the schools next spring. Teresa, my other houseguest for the weekend, arrived just before show closing. We all attended the KGAC dinner this evening, still outfitted in muddy boots. It was “come as you are,” and I was in good company. These belonged to the Director, Allison Kaiser. Hey, when you have 30 minutes between show ending and dinner beginning, you don’t have time to shower and dress. 10-12-02 Turned out to be a glorious day, full of sun and smiles. My husband and his sister went to see Perryville Battlefield today, and I spent the morning at the Fair taking promotional pictures. Teresa and Icame home for a while this afternoon to take a break, but we ended up making paper. We used some of the milkweed pulp, not the easiest thing for her to learn with, but she did a good job pulling envelopes and letter sheets. Went to a gallery reception this evening at the Berea Arts Council. 10-13-02 Rained a little last night and it’s much cooler today. My bones can tell it. Spent the morning helping out at the Fair and visiting with Teresa. She left for home about 1 and I left the Fair shortly thereafter. The Fair ends at 5 today, so my life is more or less back to normal. 10-14-02 My sister-in-law, Marybeth, asked me to show her how to make paper today. We made up recycled pulp and she pulled envelopes and sheets. She loved it. Marybeth was a normal person before this. I suspect I may have corrupted her. She leaves tomorrow full of plans to make paper at home. 10-22-02 Gorgeous day! Too pretty to stay inside. Once outside I couldn’t keep from looking for plants to harvest. Found some robust curly dock plants on Dresser Industry property and harvested the leaf stems, stripping the leaf itself off. Most of the stems were 1.5-2’ long, new growth put on by the plant to prepare for next spring’s spurt. I was afraid they might be too tender (hard to think anything would be too tender this time of year), and they did cook up very quickly, something like a half hour. When I took the hose to the cooked material, most of it separated into strands, yet left the base of the stems more or less intact. Those were…get this…purple. They were soft and could be squished between my fingers much as cooked turnip green stems. (Is “squished” a good technical papermaking term? Papermaking list member Peter would say so.) I couldn’t bear to run the stuff through the blender and ruin those purple pieces, so I plopped a handful of the cooked stuff in a small vat, pulled a couple of sheets, placed them in the press and squeezed the heck out of them. Under pressure the chucks of plant material spread out and mashed flat and thin. I realize this is “non-paper” because the plant material was never beaten or blended, but the result is awesome! I exchange dried the couched sheets, and with each change, more features appeared. It wasn’t until the sheets were almost dry that white “threads” showed up. The two sheets are various shades of deep green with swaths of purple and fine white curly threads spread throughout. That was weird enough, but when I went back to pull more, the pulp had changed color and taken on a purple tinge. I pulled eight more sheets and set them to dry. They’re deeper in color than the first, with a definite purple cast (which I can’t catch in a photo). I left the rest of the pulp to “age” till tomorrow. The sheets that I made would be tremendous pastedown sheets in a formal book. The fiber patterns are amazing, some of them looking like painter’s brushstrokes. 10-23-02 Fair warning…. If you try curly dock leaf stems as above, pull the sheets immediately after cooking and get them dry ASAP. Do NOT let the cooked plant material sit around in a pot or in the refrigerator. The purple from the lower leaf stem fades while sitting wet. It also bleeds out into the other plant material and dulls the colors. Bah! 10-24-02 Linda Wallpe set me some elephant ear leaf stems to try. The deal — she would supply them, I would cook and beat, and we would split the pulp down the middle. This turned out to be a bit of a hoot. Gayle Gregory had tried the leaves and found there was little but mush in them. I figured if there was going to be any fiber at all, it would be in the stems, but when they arrived and I stuck a fingernail in them, I knew we were in for trouble. There did not appear to be any fiber on the outside and the insides were gelatinous, not a good sign at all. Still, I’m game, so I set them on to cook. Good thing I checked early on, because after twenty minutes, the stems mashed under a spoon like well cooked celery. Hmmm… Washing the whole pot of cooked stems in a paint bag yielded little more than a handful of material. It doesn’t appear to be fiber, but rather, like Gayle’s experience, mush. However, I refuse to be defeated in this. The stuff goes in the refrigerator in a plastic bag till I come up with some brilliant solution. (No time to wrestle with it now. I have a bookbinding workshop this weekend.) Linda also sent along three huge elephant ear leaves. They’re drying on the back porch, awaiting yet another grand and glorious idea...which seem to be in short supply of late. 10-30-02 Finally got around this morning to dealing with the sow’s ear. Not sure that the result is a silk purse, but it’s definitely interesting. I mixed some well beaten gampi with the elephant ear mush to give it a good fiber base, and added a small dab of partially beaten gampi for contrast. The result is actually rather striking. The paper is smooth, quite thin and crisp and rattles nicely. I had pulled the pulp thick, knowing from past experience with the curly dock leaf stems, that the mush would flatten out, and it did so nicely. Will I ever do elephant ear leaf stems again? Um, I doubt it, not because of the paper, but because the yield is so small. Still, I’m glad I did. It goes in the database, joining Peruvian daffodils and a few others, as a plant with little or no fiber. |
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