Seed Paper

In the middle of this paper making project, the phone rang. It was my great-aunt. "What are you doing?" she asked. "Making paper" was my reply. There was a pause at the other end of the line. "I'm crazy...I know" I commented, and we both laughed.

The closeup photo of blue-grey paper shows the little specks of seeds, parsley seeds, that I've put in the paper.

Assuming that the paper dries well (and the seeds don't sprout prematurely), I'll use it for thank you notes for the Master Gardeners' Garden Show that just finished.





Here are shots of the tools and results from my first foray into papermaking:
(tutorial from Gracious Rain)

I filled the blender ~2/3 full with paper from my shredder basket, added a bit (~1/4 C.) of blue lint from my drier, and filled the blender with water.

I poured the resulting oatmeal-like slurry into a rectangular plastic tub and used the plastic needlepoint canvas as a screen to create the paper. One screen was used to collect the pulp; the other was placed on top to help squeeze out some of the water.

The wet paper was laid on a hand towel, the canvas screen removed, and was allowed to dry. Technically, it is still drying. Maybe by bedtime I can take flip the papers over to allow the bottom side to dry better...maybe I can get them off the wet towel too.

Finishing

Well, some of my things are done. The hankerchiefs have all been hemmed and pressed. They are very pretty. A friend thought they were dinner napkins...so , perhaps they are a bit heavy for "real" hankies, but I still like them.















Here's some of the detail from the center.













And, it took me a few days, but I finally wound the plied dusty rose yarns off the bobbins for storage. I don't know what I'm going to do with them (any suggestions?). The recent Spin-Off magazine had a ruffled scarf in it that looked easy to knit. I could do a scarf in each color and have them be "sister scarves". Don't hold your breath on that!

The dark and medium shades are barely distinguishable (dark is the outer 1/2" of the top ball; medium the inner portion of the top ball. The bottom ball is all light.).

Spoiled (or Multi-Shuttle Weaves are Slow)

I'm spoiled. I've been weaving lots of single shuttle plainweave recently and I love how fast it weaves.

Now, I'm weaving multi-shuttle weaves. Progress. Is. Very. Slow.

My crackle scarf (oh, dear! I didn't get the test warp samples posted!...Well, I'm weaving a scarf with 8/2 tencel for a Weaving Indiana guild project. Crackle is a new weaving structure for me. It is a cousin to overshot and summer & winter. It uses both a pattern and a tabby weft.)

I am pleased with the way the scarf turned out. In fact, it is not only visually pleasing, but texturally as well. The crackle gives the fabric areas of plain weave plus blocks of various twills. The different areas feel different! I love it!

Unfortunately, I find two shuttle weaving a bit slow. It's not horrible, but slow, and I had to pay attention to keep track of my place in the pattern and the need to use the tabby picks.


Now for the really slow part. My plan is to do another scarf in the same yarns with a clasped weft technique using three colors. This may technically be tapestry weaving, but I still think of it as clasped weft. I tried it on my test warp. I know it can be done.

But, it takes so long!!!

I'm not sure if I can use this technique for a 60" scarf!

The mid-section of this photo show the "clasped weft" weaving (teal on the left, pale green in the middle, black on the right).

The upper section is a plain weave inlay technique where the pale green weft is laid in on top of the background tabby shot (I'm alternating black & teal). The good news is that the green can be seen from both sides of the piece. The bad news is that the black weft really tones down the green.

I may be un-weaving all this by tomorrow morning and doing something else! I can't go this slow--not today!