hot weather around autumnal equinox

having students who stay late after class

or who come to work in the studio 

on other days

makes me really happy.

 book arts does that.

 at home i've had a second pot of black walnut

on the stove for several days,

dyeing up some cotton tubular yarn

and deep ,dark, delicious silk.

 drying quickly in the heat

and then there's this silk

 i love making small sample sheets

 and i bought a copy of this catalog

which includes india's work.

 and all of the linen suit paper is pulled, pressed, dried,

some of it pigmented,

shown here in the last pile of blotters and books.

 and here are some lake superior agates

some have eyes

 lace

and lanscapes inside

 the flax suit, linen rag papers

natural, yellow ochre, st lawrence riverside woods earth

 here they all are

a big harvest from a blazer and pants

not counted, 

not my habit to count

 and here's a gift 

that i've taken apart in preparation for spinning

 details like glued on tiny notes

sort of post-it notes (two of them)

and a paper thread sewing up the signature

 one page rehabbed by gluing on a new paper.

a sort of white out.

 not throwing or xing out

 taking apart a book, even a simple account book, 

is extremely instructive.

it's a lovely gift from a friend

who understands my love of these old books

which i use for kami-ito making.

it was 85 degrees here, 

in town it was 87.

predicted to be hotter yet tomorrow.

ugh.

a gift of summer in fall

i have continued making paper with hemp and linen and earth pigments. 

managing drying at home can be tedious

using blotters and weights helps, but oh for a dry box!

these are hemp (the indigo) and hemp plus linen (the pale with threads) 
and i like their strength and presence.
making small sheets 
(about 5 x 8 inches) 
gives me a chance to really enjoy these slow draining pulps
without pulling out my hair in waiting frustration.
which is what i do when i move to larger sheets.
sunday i made 12 x 14 size, 
not large, 
but 
oh
so
slow.

meanwhile i decided i would buy 
a heavier jenkins turkish drop spindle
for kami-ito making.
it's a pretty thing.

and the next photo is a bit humbling, but...

you need to see and understand the mistakes which are signposts of learning 

or re-learning.

because i have to practice skills i haven't used for years.

(this reminds me of driving standard again after years of automatic.)

but when you scrutinize less

you can see some interesting things here:

all recycled book except the thread.

book cloth was gifted.

pages were failed silkscreen prints

foraged from the trash can at school.

board recycled from another use.

and it was a way to stretch myself:

lots of sewing

four needles

estimating thread lengths

gluing the bookcloth

guling the endsheets

double or not the attachments to boards

pagination: how to keep the green, blue, yellow, and white interesting

so you want to turn the pages.

i like setting up challenges for myself.

and learning that i have to keep that sewing pattern

right so the book is not an embarrassment.

yesterday i was stunned by this

and this

we are having such warm weather

that we can have windows wide open at night

and it's sunny and so different to have this wonderful time.

september is always so busy!

the second day of peace paper at zone 4

drew and jana set students up to prep cloth

here a multitude of retired t shirts

color batched into the hollander and ready for papermaking.

z4's little valley beater

(drew says it's the best one in the country)

makes short work of a pound of t-shirt

actually about 20 minutes or less per load. 

 below, combining peace paper blurb, military uniforms from drew's work with veterans

and our sophomore seminar (melissa and me doing book arts)

 intergenerational chopping

in the print shop at slu.

 and then sheet forming.

our class really became quite skilled.

in the background is tom lascall 

who lives here and always lends a hand when peace paper is in town.

 the paper production line

 sara lynch and her friend viola came by

and made a couple of sheets

sara is an artist/potter from potsdam, 

she taught me a bit about clay last summer

 we dried paper in the dry box and by hanging the pressed papers on their felts 

 a full mill

 on the home front

we had the sawyer in to make boards from the trees

m. felled last winter

practicing forest health

and making lumber.

 the piles of drying lumber 

are behind the extra firewood (look between the two front stacks).

 saturday afternoon/evening and sunday morning we unloaded 

two wagons of lumber

mostly white pine, but also

oak, ash, black cherry, and poplar.

 pallets sourced from local businesses

are the bases for our drying stacks

 and where, oh where, are the final stacks?

if your body was as weary as mine was

after 6 hours of helping (and i was only the helper)

you'd have forgotten that photo, too!

back home i made some kami-ito

steamed it

and wove a small long cloth

for a tsunobukuro

 grapes for size comparison.

 and then i made a second one

with only one strand of linen sewing the seams.

 if you have Hirokos' book you will have seen her set up for cutting kozo

and Susan's shows it as well.

my set up included shanna leino's leather weights

which serve to hold the sheet while cutting

and serve and a hand rest for my left hand

which gets mighty tired holding down that straightedge.

 i kept a candle lit to keep me focused and happy

i love the smell of beeswax.

 and am almost ready to use these covers i made

years ago with local jeweler and bead maker 

mary harding.

and today i get to teach again with melissa

book arts

and we get to see and touch all our beautiful new paper.

peace paper

 peace paper project is here!

in the mill that healed me last winter

 many vats full of pulp

made from t-shirts and a few other bits (like hosta)

our intergenerational students

 joined drew and jana

 with some support from tom and melissa and me

 (this is our book arts class, by the way)

 making paper,

for peace, for life, for love

 we hung our pressed papers to dry on lines at the end of the class.

our class is part of this sophomore success initiative

and today, 

yard alchemy 

fresh stuff to make prints.

it's been a long time.

YAY!