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!   



                                        

A New Journal . . .



Two Needle Coptic Bound Journal



I have been keeping a journal for at least forty years.  They have been everything from cheap lined spiral notebooks (which I still use for "rough" writing), to blank page. hardbound artists' notebooks, and for the past few years, my own handbound journals.  My favorite book structure for a journal is coptic bound because the stitched binding allows the book to lie flat for easy writing.

For awhile I was having fun creating my "junk" journals -- using found covers, kraft packing papers and anything scrap that I could put together into book form.  These are some of my favorites.



Top to bottom, the covers for these coptic bound books are a Stash tea box, an art exhibit postcard, and a Sam's Cola carton.


Altho my junk journals are still my favorites, I decided that this time I was ready for a more "grown up" journal.  My new journal measures 6" x 9'', which is larger than I usually make.  The hard covers are Davey board covered with my own book cloth, made from some of my dye experiments on fabric and adhered to a strong Japanese paper with wheat paste.  The book cloth has a feel to it that is different from either the fabric or the paper, and covers the Davey board very smoothly.  The papers I used to wrap the signatures are my own papers made from a mix of abaca and plant fibers, with inclusions of gold leaf paper and dress pattern tissue.  I use a 4ply waxed linen thread for the binding.

Now I need a title page for my journal -- one that will express my intent for the part of my journey that this particular journal will encompass.  I love this quote by Henry David Thoreau:   "Never look back unless you are planning to go that way."  I will think about this today and see if something bubbles up for my journal title.

Blue Heron . . . .

Capturing an image like this is what makes me feel so priviledged to be living on this property.  A couple of times from the house, I have seen the large shadows of the herons in flight moving across the ground in front of the house.  There are not very many around, but with the ponds on the property, there are supposed to be at least two.

While I was walking in the woods the other day, I saw one take off from the direction of one of the ponds.  I got my camera ready and crept up to the pond.  He was all the way on the other side, and even with an image stabilization zoom lens, the picture I got is a bit blurry.  But isn't he beautiful?!  He almost immediately took off in rapturous flight, but I was too suprised and not quick enough to capture that image.  Next time I will be more prepared for getting a sequence of shots, but I doubt if I'd be able to set up a tripod before I was detected.

My house in town is being shown this weekend so I will take advantage of the slightly cooler weather we are having and clean up the gardens today.  I would love to get the house sold and off my mind.  With the housing market the way it is, it could sell in a week or sit there for a year.  I am quite ready to be free of it and wondering why the Universe is not moving along with me.  Perhaps a lesson for me in learning to wait patiently for events to happen in their own time. 

Today I will look for the abundance hidden in the small moments of my life and practice being grateful for all the wonderful things I do have.

Settled Into My New Home . . .

We're still working out some of the kinks in the house -- like some plumbing in the upstairs bathroom which will require tearing into  the newly painted drywall.  Curently my husband cannot quite bring himself to ruin his perfect drywall and paint job, but in time . . .

From the image of the mailboxes along the roadway, we look very rural Tennessee, but in fact we are only a few minutes from town.  It doesn't seem like that, by the time we drive through the creek bed and to the back part of the thirty acres.  It feels like we are living miles from everything.  So I guess you could say we have the best of both worlds.

In order to get that shot of the mailboxes, I had to lie down along the side of the road with cars and trucks whizzing by.  I don't think I'd do it again, but I love the image!

So now it's time to hunker down and get back to work.  The first thing that comes to mind is what work?  But I do have an article on journal making coming out in the Sept/Oct issue of "Cloth Paper Scissors" so I thought I might put together a small class and teach coptic binding.  I think it is my favorite book structure.  You can use a soft or a hard cover. And I love the stitching that binds the signatures together that allows the book to open flat, so it is a good structure for a journal or photo journal album.

Tomorrow I will post pictures of the journal I just made for myself.  I use only my own journals now and I just came to the end of the last one I made. 

Signing off for now, but I have made my decision to committ to regular blog posting.  I'm looking forward to it, if for nothing else than to convince myself that I am working and I do indeed have a life!  Hope to hear from others along the way.