Friday, July 29, 2016

ink and beeswax

black raspberry sludge
 i cooked and cooked those raspberries
low heat, many hours, added vinegar
and now there's a pint of ink
fun work!
 there are little black raspberry marks around the place
and outside
 only a few juicy ones left.
many dried ones on the canes
since it was such a generous year,
the birds had plenty.
and the coyotes,
who leave their scat in insulting spots
(for fun, they are coyotes)
are lush with seeds.
 i had a huge amount of "dirty" beeswax to deal with
after the cupboard, 
honeycomb 
and ant 
disaster.
so in the spirit of making hay
 i decided to stack the cloth that was covered in "dirty wax"
maybe you can see how thick it was
(there were thick "drips" as well)
to make a sandwich and transfer wax 
and "dirt"
 to a piece of case paper
i'd readied for a book
the stack included three pieces of abaca 
i'd made long ago
that had pigment issues.
 ok, so it was like this:
brown paper, white cotton pillowcase
abaca
case paper
beeswaxed cotton cloth-the straining cloth 
(the other half of the pillowcase)
 cotton cloth
 brown paper...
anyway a BIG sandwich
got ironed.
 a lot.
 as the thick wax dispersed into the various layers
as did the "dirt".
 i reduced the sandwich
 to this
 and this
and this and
 refolded the case
 used the various parts for signatures
 and folded it back.
  there was way too much bulk.
i cut much of the stationer's binding away
 and was left
 with a rather neat little cover
 i will sew it up today
 and make the final
rather sticky
beeswax and ant 
book.

13 comments:

  1. alice, as i said, making hay while the sun shines. using up. i tend to just gather, so using up is good practice for me.

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  2. Awesome! Way to make lemonade out of lemons!

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  3. sharmon, not sure it's very awesome, sticky might be more appropriate. but fun!

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  4. some of the best ideas come from using up. wonder if the ants will read your sticky book?

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  5. love those waxy inky marks. !!xx

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  6. judy, they are pretty wonderful, but this afternoon, all is changed! will post tomorrow!

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  7. michelle, that's a nice word for desperate! wait till the next instalment.

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  8. WOW!! I'll bet it smells wonderful too :)

    just gorgeous.

    although (whispers) I was hoping from the title that you had been making waxy ink, or inky wax... I have a LOT of beeswax to use before we leave.

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  9. felicity, i don't have any advice for using that beeswax...maybe trace could help you out! mine was a continual disaster until it became something usable...see today's post!

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  10. I just read it! and as I have xanth to use up too....

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  11. felicity, i want a full report on the outcome!

    ReplyDelete

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