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| tall windows in Rhiannon's studio |
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Yikes! It's been a while. I've been busy busy. I just downloaded my
desktop calendar for April today. It hasn't been all work--yesterday Andy and I took a walk in the woods and ended up in a redwood grove for a few hours, but more on that later. Here's a little bit of what I've been up to.
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| tools |
Rhiannon Alpers was teaching a class using local fibers in papermaking and I asked to be her assistant. I haven't been making paper too much and though I do not have a project in mind, I thought it might get me excited about paper again. And it did! I went to her studio a week before the class to help prep.
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| cooking eucalyptus leaves |
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First we went for a walk and collected eucalyptus leaves and palm bark--the hairy stuff around the tree. She also had some fennel from a friend though there is plenty growing wild in San Francisco. (I planted it in my garden anyway. And, thanks to the cats, it never sprouted).
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| cooking fresh fennel |
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| checking the fiber |
We returned to the studio and started cutting the plants in prepartation. The fennel was fresh and the eucalyptus was brittle and would have to be mixed with a stronger fiber anyway so we started them cooking right away.
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| I love using the rotary cutter! |
It takes about two hours for the fiber to cook so we cut some pelons (like interfacing for quilting) to put our formed sheet onto during class. Then we had a little drink. And got back to work.
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| artichoke and grass pulps |
Rhiannon had some pulp left over from a previous class, some of which had dried and some of which was a little moldy. We cleaned and rinsed and rehyrated. Then we strained the cooked pulp and called it a day.
Next time: photos of class and the finished paper!
Hey, if you live in the Bay Area and want to take a papermaking class, contact Rhiannon though her
website for summer classes.
