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9-1-03 Today is my birthday,
and my husband took me out to breakfast at the Artisan Center. I began to
suspect a conspiracy on the part of the craft community when we walked in and on
the table was a weed bouquet -- Johnsongrass, thistle blossoms, goldenrod, bittersweet,
foxtail and virgin's bower -- and a handmade card decorated with luna
moth wings (roadkill courtesy of Ele Workman). Friends straggled in,
some awake, some only marginally so. Larry Blair, local
photographer, gave me a bag of cotton rag mat board scraps, and Belinda Backstrap (AKA
Glenda White, local weaver) of the Ruralpolitan Opera serenaded with a rousing operatic version of Happy Birthday.
Thank you, Larry and Glenda...er, Belinda. Laura Robie, another weaver,
rode 3.1 miles by bicycle to bring a Wal-Mart bagged birthday card. Thank
you, Laura, for both the card and the bag. Jerry Workman, the local
jack-of-all-trades who gathered the weeds...er, flowers for the bouquet,
insisted that I take the bouquet home with me. The Artisan Center director thanked me for
doing so. Life in Berea is good. Having strangely warped friends is
even better. **I can't decide whether I'm a pack rat or a scavenger.
Not sure which is worse, but whichever it is, that's me. Last week I saw a
pile of hollyhocks Brian Boggs had cut down. He wasn't there, so I
couldn't ask for them. Later in the week they were gone. Darn.
Today I while I was at Tourism, I looked across and there they were...on Brian's
dump wagon! He was there. I asked. I came home with
75 or so
nicely retted stalks, still sopping wet from the rain last night. Made a soggy
mess in the van, but as it turned out, it was a good thing they were wet.
The moist bast stripped off cleanly from one end to the other. A couple of
stalks were somewhat drier, and those wouldn't strip until they were wet down
and allowed to mellow. The slimy, gray/black rotten "bark" slid off
as I pulled the strips between my fingers (yuck), but much of it
remained. The 75 stalks yielded
a tub of loosely packed bast. Soaking and
tromping in a tub of water loosened and removed
more of the gray/black yuck, but the best way seems to be spreading the strips
on concrete and hosing them.
The fiber is strange stuff. The bast strips readily
separated into individual fibers
across the grain, each as long as the strip. Weird stuff. Placed the bast back in to soak overnight.
9-2-03 Strangely warped
friends are contagious. This
morning I cut up the "bouquet" I received yesterday from my friends and put it on to cook for
paper. (No, I'm not that desperate for fiber, but it's going to be fun
seeing Jerry Workman's expression when he gets his bouquet back as paper.
Besides, it's raining. There isn't much else to do...the idle
mind/devil's workshop bit.) The bouquet a strange mixture of
plant materials -- stems, bast, fibrous leaves and thistle parachutes.
Without help from another pulp, it won't really make a good paper, but the
sheets will be interesting and highly figured. The stems and bast cooked
for an hour, then the remainder of the materials were added and the whole mess
cooked for another two hours. This was washed and run through a blender.
The fiber content actually was enough to form sheets, barely, but the ratio of
inclusions (stems and leaf ribs that really didn't break up well) to fine,
paper-forming fiber is way too high. Still, it made an
exceptionally lovely sheet.
I pulled a couple like that, then
added some cotton rag to improve the quality of the paper. Visually, I
prefer the first sheet. **Ah, me...the hollyhock bast. You don't
know how close I came to pitching the whole mass...several times. Even
after all the washing and tromping, much of the gray matter from the outside was
still present. That, in itself, didn't concern me that much. I've
made paper from mildewed iris leaves that turned out a gorgeous gray.
Besides, I figure cooking and rinsing would remove much of that, and it did.
However, the thing that concerned me more was the condition of the bast fibers
after cooking for 2.5 hours in lye, then soaking for another hour. They
were stiff, almost like
horsehairs, and there seemed to be no life in them at all, reminding me of
the elderberry bast I tried last year. (Very worrisome, because I wasn't
able to convert that bast into pulp. However, I only tried the elderberry in the
blender, not the beater, so it might be possible. May try that again but
use the beater.). Initially, the hollyhock bast was not
happy in the beater. It formed islands that blocked the intake, time after
time. It's possible to stop this "islanding" by adding a small amount of
abaca, but I didn't want to do that with the hollyhocks for two reasons -- 1) I
wanted pure pulp; and 2) the beater was at max for fiber without adding anything
else. After fighting it and realizing I was getting nowhere, I removed
about 90% of the bast, leaving the remaining 10%, which wasn't enough to jam the
beater, even when it went through in a clump. I allowed this to circulate
for 10 minutes or so, then began adding bast, bit by bit, until all of it was
back in the tub and circulating well. Never had another stoppage after
that. I still had no faith that the stuff would beat up into anything
resembling pulp. I was wrong. After two hours, it looked like pulp.
It felt like pulp, and really nice textured pulp at that. Go figure.
I'm not impressed with the color, a dirty gray, but I'll see what the
paper looks like tomorrow. I am curious now as to what color the pulp
would be if it were made from green hollyhock stalk bast. I'm guessing
here, but I think there would be the added step of steaming the stalks to remove
the bast. If that is true and if the bleaching works on mildewed bast, I'd
go with the retted stalks rather than using green ones and steaming them.
Steaming is a way big bunch of no fun work.
9-3-03 I have four studios.
If I go by Akua's system of naming, these are Studio BD (back deck), Studio SD
(side deck), Studio G (the garage), and Studio K (the kitchen). They are
listed in order of usage preference. The first two are useless if it's
raining (and it has been raining here for most of two days). Studio G
(which serves as my Hollander beating room) lacks the extra, flat surfaces
necessary for papermaking stuff. Studio K becomes impossible at mealtime (which comes with
way too much regularity). (Sorry, I'm getting a little
punchy from the rain.) **And speaking of which, I caught a time when the
drizzle was fairly light and pulled swatches of the hollyhock. (There is a 3'
overhang over the deck. It doesn't do much to protect me, but it does
shield the vat and freshly pulled sheets.) The dried sheets were both bad
and good -- lousy color, excellent quality.
Hollyhock makes a pale cream/tan paper
with flecks of black. I was hoping for something like
the paper I
made last year from mildewed iris leaves. Instead, I got speckles. It's truly
an unimpressive color. However, the pulp is a dream to pull and the
quality of the paper is excellent. The texture and feel of the pulp
reminds me of abaca, as do the sheets. They're solid and crisp and, except
for the speckles, are featureless. This is good stuff, just wish the color
were better. Set the remainder of the pulp on to bleach in
peroxide.
Back to the top
9-4-03 The
hollyhock pulp bleached
beautifully (compare to this,
the unbleached pulp). Every trace of the yucky black specks is gone and
the tan bleached out to a lovely pale yellow, which, I'm sure, will become cream
in the dried sheets. It was afternoon before I could pull anything from
the bleached pulp, but it is outstanding.
Bleaching the hollyhock produces
a clean, clear, cream colored, featureless sheet. And again, the paper
has excellent body, crisp and solid.
9-6-03 Since mid summer I've
been eyeing rose mallow that grows in a marshy area between Hwy 25 and the CSX
railroad tracks south of town, waiting for September when it stops blooming.
I wanted only the bast from them, and they were too pretty blooming to cut
earlier. Harvesting plants alongside the right-of- way in Kentucky
requires signed permission from the local Highway Department district office.
Fine, except the office for this district is in Somerset, and they don't know me
from Adam. Here in Berea, I have no trouble getting permission to gather
anywhere. I'm well known as a weird person who has an affinity for weeds.
But Somerset? (Just try explaining to someone who doesn't know you that
you want to cut weeds on public property and see what kind of reaction you
receive.) By chance while I was downtown Berea today, I ran into two local
police officers and asked them what I should do. "Why, ma'am, I wouldn't
worry about it. If I was you, I'd just go right ahead and cut whatever I
wanted. Ain't nobody gonna stop you." H'okay, I thought, I've asked
and received permission...more or less. As it happened, there was a
one-family yard sale in front of a house that was just opposite the place I
wanted to harvest, so I pulled in there, explained to the people what I wanted
to do and asked their permission. The man explained that they only owned
their side of the road, not the other. I told him I understood that, but
as far as I was concerned, the land opposite their home was very much part of
their landscape and I wouldn't disturb it without their permission. The
man looked a bit taken back, then said, "People stop there all the time and cut
stuff, but you're the first person who has asked. I appreciate that.
You just go ahead and take whatever you want, just watch for snakes." I
grabbed my clippers, streaked across the road and harvested
100 stalks of rose mallow, being
careful to watch out for copperheads. These ranged in diameter from
this size down to the
diameter of a stick of chalk, with most being midway between the two.
Normally, when I'm trying a new plant, I'll only harvest and do small amounts,
but given that this plant is related to kenaf and hollyhocks, which both make
excellent paper in the beater, I wanted to harvest enough for
the beater rather than the blender. When I started stripping the stalks,
though, I really began to have second thoughts. The one stalk I had
stripped by the roadside had come clean easily, but it was apparent that was the
exception rather than the rule. I stripped five, maybe six stalks before
giving up and resorting to steaming them. The bast came off the steamed
stalks cleanly and easily, and made
a nice size pile
(the strips on the bottom are about 12" long,; the stuff on top is the bast that was stripped before steaming; the soup can is
there for size reference). (If I were truly a good person, I would dry this
stuff and weigh it rather than using this picture as a reference for how much
bast 100 stalks produce. Sorry, I am not a good person. I'm an
impatient person who wants to know how this stuff will cook up and process and
what the paper will look like.) The stalks of the rose mallow die to the
ground after frost, so I'll likely go back and harvest some and allow the bast on
those to ret over the winter before stripping it.
9-7-03 Cut up the mallow bast
and cooked it for 3 hours in lye. The cooked bast contained very little
gunk. After washing,
the bast looked hairy, but wasn't
horse hair stiff like the
hollyhock. This bast was softer and felt much like human hair.
Unfortunately, it beat in a very similar manner to the hollyhock -- islands and
jams. At first, the bast hung coming out from under the drum, then it
began to form islands which didn't want to make
the turn back to the intake.
When the mass did suddenly make the turn, it would jam the intake. I've
decided that I really don't like beating hairy plant materials. Again, as
with the hollyhocks, I wanted pure pulp, so I couldn't add abaca to stop the
circulation problems. That meant babysitting longer than I liked.
Eventually, it circulated on its own and was a good pulp in 2 hours. (I
only beat about half of the stripped bast. That much made a beater load.
I dried the remainder [about a half pound] to beat some other time.)
**While the mallow was cooking this morning, I beat some cotton rag. Mean
stuff! This was new knit cotton, and it beat totally differently from
worn, old rag. It twisted, twined, roped for all it was worth. I
ended up putting weights on the beater
frame for the last part of the beating and that seemed to help considerably.
(Hey, don't laugh. I didn't have the recommended "chunk of firewood.")
9-8-03 Pulled the rose mallow pulp
this morning. It pulls beautifully and
makes a nice sheet. It's
smooth, fibers are consistently and even, and make an excellent paper with good
body and stiffness. **Played around with some green jute garden twine from
Ace Hardware. Ground it up in the coffee grinder, soaked it in hot water,
then added the "hydrated" jute to some super fine bleached bulrush pulp that was
too slow about draining. The inclusions speeded that up considerably, and
the jute/bulrush made an interesting
paper.
Back to the top
9-9-03 The rose mallow was bleached
with with chlorine. This is a shot of
the before and after pulps
side-by-side. The bleached rose mallow pulp is whiter and brighter than the
hollyhock that I did the other day, but I don't know whether it's lighter
because it was bleached with chlorine instead of peroxide or whether it's simply
the difference in plant materials. At some point I'll try a single pulp
with both beaching processes to do a comparison. The
bleached mallow pulp pulled
beautiful sheets, as clean and clear as any I've done, with the possible
exception of hemp. If the unprocessed cooked mallow bast is run through a
bender to break it up , then mixed with the bleached pulp, the combination makes
a striking sheet. Lovely! It's
pure mallow, but mallow
with character. **Spent the rest of the day pulling up odds and ends
pulps. It's amazing how that stuff can build up!
9-10-03 There will be no
papermaking today. The back deck "studio" is getting new gutters, along
with the rest of the house. Wham! Bam! Whine! SCREECH!
I have no idea where the cats have disappeared to. If I knew, I'd join
them.
9-12-03 Last fall I
dried some curly dock leaf
stems to see whether the lovely wine/purple
from the November leaves would hold in the dried stems. It
doesn't. I cooked up a small pot yesterday and pulled a few sheets, but the
lovely color isn't there.
Instead, there are shades of browns. The stems cook up as easily as the
green ones, and mash easily between fingers, but they're hardly something I'd
want to save and dry for future paper. I mixed some with a tiny bit of rose
mallow bast (5 part curly dock/1 part rose mallow) and used this way they make a
solid paper, but they're better as an
inclusion rather than in the amounts I used. **Went out to the field
opposite the Artisan Center and
gathered Johnsongrass to bring
back and dry. Usually Caesar is in pictures for size reference or
simply because he thinks he's an integral part of the papermaking
process and there isn't any way to keep him out, but this time he's here for another reason.
If you harvest Johnsongrass, planning on drying it, and if you have cats, please
put the cthem up away from the grass until it is dry. Wilted or bruised
Johnsongrass contains cyanide in significant amounts, Although cats aren't
exactly vegetarians, they will eat grass on occasion, and Johnsongrass seems to
appeal to them. I don't know that they would consume enough to hurt
them, but I do know wilted Johnsongrass will kill cows. I wouldn't take
the chance.
9-13-02 I had a strange thing
happen with the white cotton rag I beat on the 7th. Rag holds well, and
because I had no room in the refrigerator, this had simply been sitting out
uncovered on the counter in a plastic bucket. The first sheets I pulled
today took forever to drain. I couldn't imagine what was going on.
I'm still not certain, but I have a feeling some airborne microbes set up
housekeeping in the top layer of the pulp. It felt different from the
cotton that was underneath, not quite slick, but not far from it. I
skimmed the top layer of pulp off the bucket, set that aside and tried the
"clean" stuff underneath, That drained perfectly. Washing the
set-aside stuff solved its slow drain problem. Go figure. **Finally
got around to bleaching the #3
hickory bast. This was the bast with the corky material that made
chunks in the pulp. It's actually an interesting paper, but I still don't
care for its textural qualities.
9-14-03 This spring I did
paper from dried Indian hemp
(hemp dogbane) seedpods I found and gathered last October. I want to
do swatches from it this year, but I don't know if the pods have formed
sufficiently yet. My husband and I wandered down to the creek to check out
the seeds on a few plants I knew were growing there. Guess what....
They're gone. In their place is a drainage ditch. Arrggghhh! I
don't know how many times something like this has happened lately. The
curly dock I left to grow just a bit more...the city bushhogged. The
mulberry tree at Tourism that would only be cleared at some point...was before I
could harvest it. The velvetleaf growing alongside the cornfield...wasn't
when I went back. Moral: Harvest while ye may, lest ye may not
later. Fortunately, this area wasn't where I planned on harvesting the
Indian hemp, but I did lose my place close to home for monitoring the plants.
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