heavy rain

it seems like my cold toes and the constant deluge outside indicate i should start a fire. but i am stubborn (and lazy) and will wait until tomorrow after school.

cold toes protected by hannah's wool socks. this is "japanese style" lokta, cut and prepped for spinning. i purchase it from a local merchant.

 one sheet of the lokta, spun. 

 six sheets of lokta, spun. the warm white is natural lokta, the three dyed skeins are from pbi.

and milkweed, my lovely fiber/paper. i will finish this green harvest, and then do a gray harvest later on (though i spotted a patch of already field retted gray milkweed. i may cheat and pick that. i remember going out on my skis in march one year, two feet of frozen snow on the pasture, and harvesting milkweed, placing it in my packbasket. sking home, and prepping on the kitchen floor. my hands were cold, but the paper was lovely.

guess what this is?

 and this?

and this?

and this?

this is wonderful. i like it now as much as when i first saw it.

thankful

i AM so thankful that i can once again access my images. so this was the view from my back door three days ago. it's already changed.

aimee sent me several bits of her current work, pieces of ideas, pieces of eight. for they are truly treasures. i love the pieces that are leftover or extra or samples. they show me how the mind is working and i never feel bad playing with the samples i get. and, anyway, this piece of paper is just like this rainy weather we are experiencing this week. gray, rainy, lovely. maybe a bit sad. lord willin' and the crick don't rise (we are under flood warnings) i will get some photos of the most recent lokta spinning. all this humidity means lovely papr spinning.you'll see, soon!

an image!!!!!

my friend aimee lee showed me a page from her current sketchbook. i told her this. because it's sometimes true. but the thing is that i was able to get an image--her jpg sent to me and i put it on my desktop and dragged it into the add images box. i still can't get my pictures from iphoto events like i have since i started this blog. but here's aimee's calligraphy with my words of wisdom.

missing: photographs

missing: pohotgraphs.


i'm not quite sure how to proceed with no pictures. this is an interesting dilemma and points out how image is necessary for me. i have been looking at the blogger help stuff, and apparently this is not an unknown problem. there have been no fixes cited, so i will be off until this is fixed. please excuse, it is entirely blogger's problem. and yet i feel responsible somehow. i guess that says something about how this etherial world has become a community of sorts. hmmm...

photos

blogger has determined that i am no longer allowed to upload photos to this blog. i am not handling this well. it just does not work. period. i have gone snooping and tried a dozen times, to no avail. i hate this.


so, until i can sort this out, wake robin will be quiet. bear with me, i am trying.

view from here

the view from here. not bad? today it's up to the low 8os. can hardly believe this. wild wind bringing in a front, but so strange!

this week something special in the mail from aimee

and carol: a new warwick press book!

eyestory

and those tiny moulds i got from the handpapermaking auction: ta da! tiny papers!

up close with shifu

drying after the post dye wash.

and something healing from my garden. also in the garden: papermaking plants: daylily, hosta, slippery elm, iris, even narcissi, though they're long gone. also some new lilies, and a few other plants that made it through the wild tangle of apple mint. i could start my own apple mint nursery!

loose ends tied

for carol: the surprise in my cupboard

sunsetshine on hill road

they probably have more than one

beautiful walking

ice flower viola dye, shifu square tied around a soy bean with linen

on a pie pumpkin

day lily paper from my tiny mould

adding mica to daylily

from sri, japanese hemp fiber, ready for weaving

more mill work

they DID want to make some paper with ferns, asters, and black eyed susans!

abaca vat (rear) thistledown pulp in foreground

pressing the post, always a hit because of how the water gushes out

i do get a bit of grief over the blenders (stairs). i pick them up at garage sales, and when out kitchen blender gave out, hannah went to the mill and chose one that was still unused.

i usually dry on boards, and it's another good hand/eye skill for the kids. here they see the first sheet as it emerges from the pressed post. note my very fancy fine brush!!!

it's an honor to have my own students make paper here. one was home sick, and the others chose to make sheets for him to use in our bookworks. these kids are thoughtful. i was up early and had to nap after work! 

lesson plans

round the place i'll know that fall is here.

busy days, making paper, cleaning up, making more pulp, pulling sheets. wet pants legs, wool socks with plastic shoes. who wants to clean house when it's so urgent outdoors? great blue herons soar over. the hooligans will come this week to make paper. the last students went a bit wild with the iridescent mica bits, not bling exactly, but it's cousin.

the black eyed susans are going, and i'm hoping the kids will use the remaining petals in some abaca, along with asters and ferns. makes a lovely sheet, and i do NOT like "flower paper". these have colors that will last and please the kids so they will want to do some binding. and if they can write something, and print it out on the imac, and bind it, they will be so proud. am i doing the work? you bet--setting kids up to succeed is happy work.

weary abundance

rock pages

washing daylily pulp

lace

stained

dyed

a coming together

fiber

iridescence

incandescence

transcendence

students

presents

the day started with coyotes barking madly and me convinced that wandering wendy had met her death. she appeared (after i armed myself with boots and pitchfork to foray into the tanglewood. 

i worked and taught four students from slu, and mark and i put their sheets on boards to dry.

valerie brought me okra, to freeze for mucilage.

abundance.

rock paper no scissors

redefining red

paper

mirror

sky rocks

rock pages

moving slowly

sometimes it feels like your own work is moving slowly, sometimes it plods along like a good ox team, and sometimes it's like the amazing pair of belguims i saw trotting a wagon down the highway on my way home from work. so quick they were with their young amish men driving that i hadn't time to dig out my camera. the team was high stepping with brilliance. i had a few ends to weave in on this milkweed shifu square. which drove me to prepare more lokta for spinning.

a well loved and much used reference. i have a only few dye books i reuse. india's is much marked. i'm on the verge of making notations in the book! this book is the perfect reference, the only criticism i have with it was a publisher's glitch, my copy has the paper grain running perpendicular to the spine, so the pages curl a bit. 

last night's violas and pickle juice (vinegar) on my sister's old linen pants. (thank you, claudia)

same jar of dye... border leister from andrea

unwrapping from the copper pipe. it's still this color today after drying.

i'm getting the mill ready for mark's class to come on wednesday to make paper. i am working on the stone book pages. i like having several projects going at once, only need more hours, those few at night (for sleeping) would be handy right now!