It hardly seems that it has been over a year since I have added to my blog.  Since the summer of 2011, I have been making some books for gifts.  In 2012, I focused on paper making.  In January, I took a class at the Venice Art Center from Sandy Frick.  We made paper from abaca and then used plant parts to print on the paper.

At the end of July, we drove to New Hampshire and I participated in a three day class called "Pulp Clouds: making paper from local plants," presented by Velma Bolyard.  The class was held at Nancy Zeller's Long Ridge Farm, about 30 miles from Goshen where we spend time every summer.  I learned a lot about making paper in this workshop.  We used a variety of plants to make our paper, including hosta, day lilies, cat tails, cedar bark, and milkweed.

After the class was over, I decided to make more milkweed paper from the plants in the field behind the house in Goshen.  I cut a big pile of stems.   It was easy to peel the outer green layer off the stems because the plants were still young.  The pods had not ripened and burst open yet so I was unable to use the fluff in the paper.  I cut up the green outer bark into about 1 inch lengths and when I had a good layer of them in the bottom of the kettle, I added water and cooked them with about a cup of washing soda added.  After several hours, it looked as though the material was breaking down.  The cooled pulp was run through the blender and put into the paper making tub with additional water.  The resulting paper was a pale tan color with a nice texture.  I believe if you harvest the milk weed after a frost and let it dry before processing, you will have a pale paper.

Today I cut up bamboo sheaths which I will cook and blend tomorrow for making paper.  It will be interesting to see what the result is.  I watched a video on making Korean Hanji and I can see how far my processes are from their professional work but, even so, I was quite pleased with my summer results.  I hope the bamboo paper is even better.  It is time to create some good quality paper.  I am getting older so I must begin THE BOOK pretty soon!