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Normally this site is done as a day-by-day journal,
but I have been offline with an eye problem, so I'll play catch-up bit by bit
here. Eventually I'll get back to proper journaling.
 This
is one of the pieces I've been working on over the past few weeks.
(The picture is clickable for a larger image. Height of the piece is 5", width is 6".) The bottom is paper made from
swamp thistle seed heads,
the top is woven from daylily leaves. For the bottom, I used freshly
pulled, thick, board pressed sheets of swamp thistle paper, and formed those in multiple layers
around a handthrown clay pot (Mud Pie Pottery, Rosanne Cleveland King) to the level that you see in the picture to the
left. While I was doing that, the daylily leaves were mellowing in a
wet towel. I selected long, flawless leaves, tied a knot in the
center of each and mounted them on the side of the piece
like this, gradually
working around the pot. As I moved around the pot, I
covered this mounting with
a layer of paper, securing the soon-to-be-weavers, but leaving the knots exposed,. The knots
served both as decoration and as a way to keep the weavers from slipping out. Then after all
the weavers were covered, I added yet another layer of paper for strength, allowed
the piece to dry completely,
then removed it from the
pot. Working with a combination of paper and daylily leaves
presents a problem. The paper needs to remain completely dry while the
daylily leaves need to be mellow, which means the leaves must be dampened
some way. Normally I mist spray them before weaving and wrap them in a
wet towel until they're soft, but in this case, spraying wasn't an option.
Too much danger of getting water on the paper. I ended up putting the
piece back on the pot, inverting it and
wrapping the leaves and pot
base with a warm, wet towel. It took a little longer doing it this
way, but it worked. The weaving pattern is
simple two-weaver twining.
At this point, the shape is pulled sharply in forming a level top.
When the opening was the right size, the spokes were pulled "behind one and
out" to secure them flat. Then they were trimmed even and
wrap stitched to
form the rim.Back
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