monday fibers

washing horsehair... i'm cleaning out the paper mill and found my stash of horsehair from my mare mist. so i washed it.

it smelled only a little of horse, but it was so her. silver gray hair from her mane. i will use it in a textile soon, i think. i saved it for the right time. which might be now.

luscious slippery elm bark i harvested for frank, a north country gift. a nice bunch, i found it isn't peeling as well as it did in spring. the summer is so advanced this year that peeling isn't easy and pleasurable like it is in may. but i think he'll have enough to make some paper and see what he thinks. i still haven't tried basswood inner bark. must do! also must harvest milkweed and dogbane. i'm a little weirded out by the ticks and really don't want to come home covered in them so i find myself avoiding tall meadows. silly of me, but there is lyme disease up here now. i'm feeling creepy crawly from harvesting that slippery elm. 

good news: i've had two books accepted in the sequenced fibers show in omaha this october. i am tickled; karen kunc is the juror, an artist i respect deeply. i also talked loooong with aimee who will be teaching in the brand new hanji studio (that she oversaw and helped build) at the morgan conservatory this weekend. and again later with my dear friend kathy. a day of friends, easy paced work, and not too warm summertime freshness. my kind of day!