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journal |
October 2001 |
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10-1-01 Helped stuff envelopes at the Guild office. Before I left I ran across to the other side of the tracks to see what was there. Found 15 or 20 milkweed stalks, most of them too far along, but harvested them anyway. Stripped and put the bast on to cook. Wretched looking stuff, dull, dark gray. Left it in to soak overnight. ** Bleached the mixed cattail pulp from yesterday and pulled a couple of sheets. Lovely paper, a smooth creamy white. 10-2-01 I’m being blackmailed. Gary, the plumber, the one with the warped sense of humor, wants paper made from the fibrous sludge in the washer drain pipe. The threat? That he’ll be called away to one after another plumbing emergency and my bathroom will sit as is...forever. In view of that, I’m considering it. ** Stripped the bast from the tobacco stalks I’ve had soaking for the last three days, cooked it up and ran through the blender. Hard to believe, but there isn’t a handful of fiber in the entire batch. I pulled three test sheets from the mess, but it isn’t good paper. Nothing to hold it together. Decided to go a different direction. It’s possible the stalk might make paper. Took a little over a pound dry weight of the stalk, broke it up and set that on to cook. Took a look at it after about 2.5 hours, and it may possibly work up, but it will take the Hollander to do it. Tomorrow’s job. Left it soaking. ** Pulled sheets from the last batch of cattails, the mixture of washed and unwashed that I bleached, and they look lovely — smooth, clear, crisp, good writing or printer stock. Pulls better with the addition of the unwashed pulp. ** Rinsed the milkweed and pulped it, then rinsed multiple times. Very difficult to get the dark particles out. Seems best to allow slowly running water to float them out and over the side of the pan. The fibers were still dull gray, so I bleached them Tried to pull sheets, but the fibers need a formation aid, clump too much in the vat. Set aside for another day. 10-3-01 Set Mark’s critter up and dumped the cooked tobacco stalks into it, but they were still too bulky even for the Hollander. Kept jamming in the slots. Pulled it all back out and cooked it for another hour. They seemed to break up better after that. Raised the drum on the beater and ran it that way for about 30 minutes till the stalks had broken down somewhat, then lowered it. Worked fine except the stalks still didn’t want to circulate, kept sinking to the bottom. By now I know the remedy for that. Added 2 ounces dry weight of unbeached abaca, and voila! Instant circulation! (That ratio figured out to about 10% abaca and 90% tobacco stalk.) Still had to run the beater for nearly 3 hours before the pulp really looked good. Pulled a couple of sheets while the rest was still beating and I’m well pleased. The paper is a rich, smooth golden color, almost the shade of burley ripening in the field. 10-5-01 Cut and steamed the stems from the butterfly weed in the wildflower garden. Some were already brown, but most still had a hint of green. Those stripped more easily. Yield was surprising given the diameter of the stems. Blended and bleached. Butterfly weed is in the milkweed family and I suspected it would have the same characteristics as milkweed as far as bast and paper is concerned, and it does, but butterfly weed is far more easily managed as far as producing pulp is concerned, and the pulp is much cleaner. I still have milkweed pulp that I couldn’t pull because it required a formation aid. The butterfly weed pulp may require it as well. Bought some okra this week to use for formation, so I’ll pull both tomorrow. ** The plumber brought me the goo from the drain pipe. After looking at it, I was most thankful that I could honestly tell him it wouldn’t make paper. 10-6-01 Ah! Butterfly weed doesn’t require a formation aid, and it makes a lovely, clean, silky white paper! Far prettier than paper made from milkweed, I suppose because it is cleaner, and, too, because the silks shine in it. Lovely paper. ** I mentioned before that I’d been eyeing my purple bean plant. There is really nothing that can be done about it until the frost hits, but I wanted to be sure it did have usable fibers. I already knew the outside fibers stripped cleanly and easily without any cooking. Pulled five or six seed bearing stalks, stripped them and cooked the small amount of resulting fiber to test. I know now I will be harvesting this plant come frost. The fibers are a beautiful shade of very light yellow. Didn’t have enough even to pull a test sheet, but the plant it is a definite possibility. 10-10-01 Bushed. Made 14 gallons of pulp for the Children’s Project at the Kentucky Guild Fair on Friday. Those kids are going to pull American — red, white and blue. 10-15-01 The school children enjoyed the paper project on the 12th, though it would have been better had it not rained. Pulling paper outside from a plastic pool set under pine trees provided an interesting experience in Mother Nature’s inclusions. ** Came out of the Fair hyper with ideas and plans. I’ll be collaborating with a photographer who wants to do photo transfers onto HMP and with a collage artist who wants to experiment with paper from natural materials. The work of a silk artist has sent my mind reeling with ideas. For me it is fun to take ideas from one medium and transfer them to and mutate them within another medium. The end result, even though inspired by a particular piece, never bears a resemblance to the original. 10-16-01 We’ve had several frosts since the night of the 6th, but haven’t had the big one yet. Still, I’ve had to harvest odds and ends that have been bitten. The purple (hyacinth) bean vine has been hit the worst. At odd times since the 6th I’ve been harvesting and peeling the 12”-18” seed stalks. They peel well green and seem to yield a good deal of fiber. Today I harvested the plants from the ground up and peeled the stems. It seems strange that the purple “bark” will make yellow pulp. While I was at it, I harvested the leaf stems. Well...they were falling off. Why not pick them up, cook them up and see? 10-18-01 Cooked the bean leaf stems this afternoon. They do make paper, and lovely paper at that! The fibers in the leaf stems are just a little too coarse to pull by themselves. I added about 1/4 abaca by volume. When light shines through the paper, it is outstanding. **Harvested a pot full of frostbit hosta leaves and stems and they’re on cooking now. I have a project in mind for tomorrow and need a smooth, “non-invasive” pulp. This should work. If not, I’ll play with abaca. 10-19-01 The project I mentioned yesterday involved embossing. I’m a woodcarver, have been since I was six, and I wanted to explore ways of incorporating the carving into the papermaking. One possibility was embossing. Earlier in the week I visited a friend who runs a carpet/vinyl flooring business, and he gave me a sample sheet of vinyl. I had the proper gouges, but I had given the parting tool I needed to my son. Ordered another from Woodcraft Supply (my goodness, how the prices have gone up!), The design I chose to carve was nothing elaborate. This was to be more an experiment in carving vinyl for embossing anything else — how deep the groves, how intricate the carving. Learned a lot. <insert grin here> I had pulped the hostas that were cooked yesterday and added a little abaca to give the paper strength. I pulled a 6”x11” sheet, foot pressed it so I could handle it, placed the paper on the carved vinyl, covered it with a couching sheet and backing, then placed the stack in the press. Changed the couching sheet and backing a couple of times during the day. The hosta/abaca mix worked well with the embossing. The fibers were fine enough not to interfere with the embossed design, however… I made the mistake of thinking when the sheet was almost dry that I could remove it from the press and allow it to air dry while still stuck to the vinyl. Wrong. It did not remain stuck. Instead, the corners peeled up while I was involved in something else, then the whole thing popped off. I have air dried paper stuck to vinyl outside with no problems, but apparently this stuff is slicker. There was no way to stick the sheet back down and reinsert in the press. I tried placing the curling sheet under a couple of couching cloths and place under a lightweight book, but even that little pressure flattened some of the design out. Live and learn. So, I misted the vinyl with water, placed the half-dried sheet back on it, wet and smoothed the sheet and put it back in the press. Haven’t the foggiest idea what will happen, but you can bet it will dry in the press this time. **Cooked up the purple bean bast and bleached the pulp. Goes from a sickening dead olive green to a lovely yellowish white. The pulp will require a formation aid in the vat to prevent clumping, but with a bit of work I did pulled a test sheet without the aid to see what the paper would look like. Nice. (Compare that to the sheet pulled from the purple bean leaf stems.) **Cooked and made pulp from a pot of hosta stems without the leaves and bleached that. Very nice smooth, cream colored pulp. 10-20-01 Learned another lesson about embossing — don’t use fibers that will shrink. Damping and repressing the paper removed the previous embossing, but the fibers shrank as they dried and drastically softened the widest embossing cuts. I’ve deepened some of the cuts and will try again at some point with a fiber that won’t shrink. **Fooled around with several different things today, one notable success, one miserable failure. The failure was caladium. If you’re planning on trying it, don’t. I did manage to salvage one small test sheet, but it’s unbelievably ugly, not to mention nearly impossible to handle while damp. Won’t even bother to post a picture of it. **Cooked and pulled lily of the valley, and it makes nice paper, but the pulp requires a formation aid. Fibers tend to clump in the vat. **Pulled paper from the bleached hosta stems from yesterday and it’s outstanding. It’s difficult to pull anything other than very thin sheets from it, but the fact that they are thin makes the paper all the more lovely. 10-21-01 JimT and I took a walk late this afternoon down by the creek. Cut some Japanese knotweed that was dying back and brought it home. It looks as if it has quite enough fiber to make paper, but I suspect that it would best be retted in the sun and dew before processing. I did cut a small bunch up to cook, but I’ll go back shortly and harvest some to ret. **Walking back across the golf course, I wondered what some of my neighbors and townspeople think when they see me wagging weird stuff home. Too, I have a great deal of appreciation for a husband who is willing to come along on these ventures, knowing full well that his reputation may be smudged by association. **Pulled one sheet of unbleached abaca to press on the vinyl and leave overnight. I intend to play with colors within the design, but that will come after I master the embossing. 10-22-01 Embossing on the unbleached abaca worked well. Now I know how deep the cuts need to be and how long to leave the sheet on the vinyl. Now to come up with a decent design. Yeah… **Cooked the Japanese knotweed for two hours yesterday evening and left it soaking overnight, but that didn’t seem to touch it. Cooked another three hours today and left it to soak. 10-23-01 Spent the afternoon gathering stuff. Stopped at Lindy’s and harvested some pampas grass, the railroad tracks for cattails and Ken Gantineau’s for weathered Japanese knotweed. Also harvested the last of the green hosta stems. The pampas grass cooked up far more easily than I expected, given the time of year. Made a nice paper, too. Pulled several sheets, but I’ll save the rest to bleach and see what that does. Attacked the Japanese knotweed with the bender, or perhaps it would be better said that the knotweed attacked the bender. That stuff is mean! It is fodder for a Hollander rather than a blender, and I would have put it in the critter but I didn’t have enough to justify it. The blender finally did manage to process it, and it is possible to pull sheets, but it works better with just a little abaca. The material was interesting. The inside of the stem is cream, the outside bast is a deep reddish brown with a hint of cherry. When it is cooked, the bast colors the entire mixture a deep mahogany brown. After pulling several sheets, I bleached the remainder of the pulp. The bleach had no effect on the bast fibers, but did bleach the stem pulp back to its original cream color. Makes for a very interesting paper! Bleached the pampas grass and pulled sheets. **Sometimes, after a day of being on your feet madly harvesting and pulling paper right and left, you get a little flaky. An idea — collaboration with another papermaker, nature’s papermaker who has a good deal of clout! 10-24-01 Someone made the comment that I must have hundreds of acres to search for papermaking materials. I do have access to quite a bit of land through friends, but that isn’t always necessary. Old Town Berea is a commercial two block strip that backs up against the CSX railroad in downtown Berea. If you open your eyes, areas such as this can be a papermaker’s gold mine. In those two blocks I have found and been allowed to harvest: bittersweet, mulberry, elm, Japanese knotweed, violets, barnyardgrass, Johnsongrass, bulrush, cattail, black willow, pampas grass, foxtail, purple foxtail, witchgrass, catalpa, brushbottle grass, milkweed, locust, broomsedge, Joe-Pye weed and purpletop. And I have not yet scratched the surface. Plants are where you find them. 10-25-01 Stopped by the Berea College campus this afternoon and picked up some ginkgo leaves. I had hoped they would be yellow now, but they’re still green. There were quite enough on the ground because of the storm yesterday and I did pick them up, but I want to go back later when they’ve turned, too. Answered several questioners about why I was gathering leaves, and on the way back to the van, stopped and talked with a young lady who was painting the palette nature had laid out for her. Cooked and blended the leaves to see what kind of a paper gingko would make. There is quite enough fiber in the leaf and leaf stem and the paper is interesting. 10-26-01 Stopped by Tourism and talked with Belle about giving them a paper wheel made from nothing but naturally occurring plants harvested in Old Town. While I was down there, I harvested purple foxtail, foxtail, cattail, bulrush, witchgrass and catalpa beans. Came back home a bloody mess. I’m so thin skinned (not figuratively speaking, since that skin is thick as an elephant’s) that even grass stubs will poke holes in me. Of course, it didn’t help that I stabbed my leg with a knife. Life as a papermaker is fraught with perils. ** The catalpa pods are interesting. Most still had the seeds inside. The seeds are covered with a white fibrous sheath and I would love to try just those alone, but I didn’t have enough. I suspect, in quantity, they would make paper. Instead, I split the pods, spilled the seeds out into the pot, cut the pods into 1-2” lengths and cooked for 1.5 hours in A&H washing soda. The pods do make paper with an interesting texture, though the sheets are heavy. Put the purple foxtail on to cook, but it will be tomorrow before I can pull anything from that. 10-28-01 I’ve always thought that one of the best things about morning was that with two cups of coffee, two aspirins and thirty minutes, I would feel better. No so yesterday, which turned out to be a total wash. Today was better. Put the giant foxtail on to cook while I blended and pulled the purple foxtail. The pulp was smoother than I expected and pulled a nice sheet. Saved half the pulp and washed that, but there is little difference in the paper pulled from the washed pulp. The giant foxtail made a coarser pulp and a coarser, heavier sheet with more pronounced fibers. The covering husks from the seeds show in both the foxtail and purple foxtail, and when the papers are held up to the light, the seeds themselves show as very light areas, like tiny round watermarks. The witchgrass is on cooking now to be pulled tomorrow. 10-29-01 Hmmm... witchgrass paper looks much like foxtail which looks much like purple foxtail. Am I seeing a trend here? I’d hate to think that all dried grasses look much alike. I have some dried broomsedge to try, so perhaps I’ll see. ** Papermaking friends are coming tomorrow to play with pulp, so I gathered and cooked up pampas grass and cattails. 10-30-01 Spent the day thoroughly enjoying the company of other papermakers. Talked, ate, laughed and pulled a few sheets of cattail, pampas grass and Japanese knotweed along the way. Life is good. |
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