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February 2006

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2-22-06  As I said on the homepage, I've been busy revamping the format of this site.  (It would have helped had I known what I was doing.  I've learned a lot in the last few weeks, but not nearly enough.)   A few things were deleted in the process of redoing the site, but not many.  The craft related information is all still here, though the locations have moved.  As of right now, there are about 80 or so pages here, over 1100 pictures, 1600 internal hyperlinks and 150 links to the "outside world."  (Thank heaven for FrontPage's tracking system.  Without it, more links would have been broken than kept live.)  When redoing the old journal pages, I combined the split entries for some months (i.e. July[1] and July[2]).  This may cause a few of those pages to load slowly, though even then they shouldn't take more than 30 seconds at 56.6.  Those pages were split using two tables, which (in theory) should help.  If I get enough nerve, all this will be uploaded tonight (22nd) and should be live in the morning.  Before uploading, I shall sacrifice two hens, burn incense and ask the blessings of the cyber gods.  I'm certain there are still kinks in the site, and if you should happen to run across one, please drop me an email with the page URL and the problem so I can fix it.

2-25-06  It's way too early to think about gathering stuff for papermaking, but it was so pretty outside, I couldn't resist wandering around the yard seeing what was left in the flowerbeds.  I'll probably regret it, but I left the bearded iris leaves in the bed to over-winter.  Last time I did this, the plants ended up with some kind of disease, but the gray, mildewed iris leaves make such a pretty paper, I couldn't resist leaving them last fall.  I'm not so certain about the hosta leaf stems.  They seem to have weathered away to nothing.  The cut-off bases of the flower stalks are still there, but I'm not especially interested in them.  The paper from them is too coarse and heavy to be pretty.  The best of the plants in the beds is the Siberian iris.  The leaves wintered over beautifully, turning a lovely rich reddish brown.  I may go ahead and gather them to keep the leaves from turning gray.  The rest can wait in the beds until I need them.

2-27-06  The other day while I was out, some purple cloth caught my eye.  FWIW, purple is NOT me.  But...I have a very dear friend, jo mink, a weaver from Lexington, and purple IS jo.  Lower case letters are also jo mink, her choice of spelling, perhaps because she's diminutive, maybe 4'10"  and maybe 85 pounds dripping wet.  Tiny, yes, but she's a whirlwind and a delightful person.  When I saw the cloth, she came immediately to mind.  I owe her and a purple book would be perfect payment.  It's hard to find good print cotton for books, mainly because most designs are too large.  When you live in a small town, choices are even more limited.  Wal-Mart is my only in-town source, but they do carry 100% cotton cloth made by Cranston Village, a company that creates designs with quilters in mind.  This works out beautifully for bookbinders, too.  This afternoon  I cooked up some bookpaste and will let it cool overnight, then make the bookcloth tomorrow.  Super-secret-don't-tell-anyone paste recipe follows:

1/2 cup plain flour (or 1/4 cup plain flower, 1/4 cup rice flour)

3 cups water

In a large, microwavable glass bowl, mix flour with 1/2 cup cold water and whisk well.  Add another 1/2 cup cold water and whisk again.  Add two cups rapidly boiling water and whisk.  Place bowl of flour/water in the microwave and cook on high for about 3-4 minutes, stopping and stirring every minute.  Pour into a smaller bowl, cover the surface of the paste with Saran Wrap and place in the refrigerator.  Will keep about ten days to two weeks.

2-28-06  This morning I cut the cloth into 8.5"x11" pieces to be backed with paper.  Wet them, stuck them onto the sliding glass doors and backed them with paste covered paper.  The sun hits that side of the house, so they were dry within a few hours.  The reddish thing in the background is a suet feeder made from a potato sack.  I got the (again) super-secret-don't-tell-anyone recipe for the "bird pudding" suet mixture from Susan Albert's blog.  Unfortunately, not only do the birds like it, squirrels and 'coons do, too.  That's the reason for the make-do potato sack thing.  If they're going to tear the feeder up, and they do, I'd rather it be easily replaceable.   

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