An Excercise in Futility . . .



Flower Heads Collected for Papermaking

 Queen Anne's Lace has always been a favorite flower of mine, although it is essentially a weed, and grows in abundance here in Tennessee in meadows and along roadsides.  I have romanticised it since childhood, because it does look so much like lace, and because the name, "Queen Anne's Lace" is such an elegant name for a weed.  And it makes a beautiful bouquet when arranged with other summer flowers.

So with the fantasy image firmly planted in my mind, I decided I would make paper out of just the flower heads for the 2011 Paper Swatch Swap for my Yahoo papermakers' group.  I've made enough paper from plant fibers to know what the resulting paper usually looks like, but I ignored that bit of reality and set about to make my paper.

After gathering a couple of buckets full of the flower heads, I cooked them in a large crockpot for the better part of a day, with water and caustic soda.  Then I beat the green goo-like fibrous mass to break down the fibers.

Beating the Fibers

By the time I had the fibers in the vat and pulled my first sheet, I knew things were not going to work out very well.  The water drained very slowly from the mold and the formed sheet of paper would not let go of the screen.  I made three test papers with a four by six inch mold and decided to stop there.  The resultant papers were quite typical of a fresh green weed used to make paper -- very predictable and quite frankly boring.  Sometimes things just don't work out how you want them to!

Finished Papers

I could add recycled handmade paper to the plant fibers and make it work, but I think I'll just let it go and think of something else for the paper swap!