dyeing fabric with emily

The Borrowers

Had a sudden hankering for Arrietty & co.



which is keeping me from beginning

a skirt for my niece

Embellishments

Here are just a few of the ways to spice up handmade paper.

Flower Petals: Add in flowers during the beating stage, a few seconds before the pulp is thoroughly blended. Stay away from red petals, as they bleed into the surrounding area, white flowers, which will turn brown, and any green bits, as they might tint the whole batch yellow. Marigold petals, tea, and coffee can be turned into natural dyes.



Gold Leaf: Add gold leaf by placing a sheet of it into a sieve, then forcing tiny flakes through with a stiff brush directly into the vat. It looks great with dark pulp. Add several sheets of gold leaf with less pulp than normal, so you can make very thin sheets.

Lamination: Couch at least two sheets directly on top of each other. They will bond together permanently when pressed and dried. To make sure the second sheet will be placed directly on top of the first, place the mold on top of the first sheet, mark the outer edges with pieces of string, and remove the mold. Lay dried flowers, leaves, or feathers on top, then pull a second sheet, placing it exactly on top, using the strings as a guide. Press each laminated sheet separately. Laminating yarn is another option. First, dip a piece of yarn in a different colored pulp, and then lay it down on a newly formed sheet. Feel free to let the pieces of yarn run outside the edges of the paper. Overlap more pieces dipped in pulp, then cover the bottom sheet with another freshly made sheet. Press and dry separately.

Texture: Simply couch paper onto textured surfaces, like tulle, bubble wrap, or textured glass.

Japanese Momogami: Crumple a damp sheet of pressed paper into a tiny ball, wrap it tightly in plastic wrap, and, once it has dried overnight, open it up and smooth it out with a bone folder.

Embossing: Place a wire shape on the couching surface, and then deposit a newly pulled paper on top of it. Cover it with a damp cloth, then a towel, and a heavy board or bricks. Another technique is to press an object down onto the new sheet, then cover and weight it so it can air dry.

Making Paper from Plants

It is possible to make paper from plants and barks found all over in early spring or summer, when they are tender and easily broken down. Corn husks, cattails, leaves from pineapple, narcissus, iris or daylily plants, wheat straw, and mulberry bark are just a few of the possibilities. Either use them immediately or dry them for later.
Though the supplies for this process are more extensive than the previous technique, they are all available in grocery and home improvement stores. In addition to a mold, vat, couching supplies, and blender, find a stainless steel pot, wooden spoons, a paint straining sock, a few five-gallon buckets, safety goggles, gloves, and a dust mask. Soda ash, used to break down the plants, can be found in the pool chemistry section of a home improvement store, and lye, used for clogged drains, is sold in grocery stores. Make sure it is 100% lye with no fillers. Mallets, which are often better than a blender because they do not cut the fibers, are useful. A hotplate is necessary, as the fumes are hazardous and cooking outside is advised.

1. Measure the dry fiber. Implement a 20% cooking solution when using soda ash: 1 lb. of dry fiber to ~ 3 ½ oz. of Soda Ash is the proper ratio. For lye, a 9% cooking solution works: 1 lb. dry fiber to ~ 1 ½ oz. lye

2. Soak the fiber overnight.

3. Cooking: Fill the pot with water THEN add the proper amount of soda ash to the water (never the other way around). Be sure to cook outside, as the fumes are hazardous, and be sure to use rubber gloves, safety goggles, and a mask (when dealing with the alkaline in powder form). Though it depends on the plant, cook for a few hours, stirring occasionally, until the fibers can be pulled apart.

4. Cool the fibers in the cooking water overnight, and in the morning, put a paint straining sock over a five gallon bucket, and then dump out the contents of the pot into the bucket. Pick up the sock, allow it to drain, and then deposit the fibers into a bucket of clean water. Change the water six times, until it runs clear. Keep in mind that some fibers dye the water, so use Ph test strips and get back to a neutral of 7 or 8.

5. Neutralize the alkaline cooking water using a bottle of vinegar—test it until it gets back to a neutral of 7 or 8.

6. Pounding: It is best to pound many fibers by hand using mallets, as a blender would simply cut the fibers short, whereas pounding merely separates them. Flatten out the pulp, and then turn it, pounding with two mallets of the same size for about twenty minutes.
If this technique is impossible, cut fibers into half-inch lengths, add ½ cup to blender full of water, and blend for thirty seconds. In order to mimic the result of hand pounding, use the blender for varying amounts of time for each blender batch, which will keep the fibers from all being the same length. As a result, the fibers will have a stronger bond when they are formed into sheets of paper.

7. Test the consistency by pinching tiny bits of pulp from various areas and dropping them in a glass jar filled with water. Shake the jar and observe what happens. Clumps might be what you want, but if not, moisten the pulp and continue pounding.

8. Neri: Mix the pulp with water in a small container, and then dump just a small amount into the water-filled vat. These sheets should be much thinner than the ones made with recycled fibers. There is a Japanese sheet forming technique that results in an extremely thin, strong sheet of paper. They us a formation aid called a “neri,” which is added to the vat to suspend the fibers in the water. That enables the production of very thin sheets of paper. Either buy synthetic neri from a papermaking supplier, or use these instructions to make a similar concoction.
Soak okra in water for six hours, then strain it, making sure no plant parts remain. Add the liquid to the vat slowly. It will change the water’s sound. When you lift your hand out of the vat, there should be a thread of liquid that comes off of it.

9. Pulling a sheet: Dip the mold into the vat, pull it up, and let it drain for a few moments, then redip it, making sure that the screen enters into the water at a 90% angle. Dip the screen eight times.

10. Couching: After the mold stops dripping, carefully set the screen paper side down, onto the couching station. Use the sponge to press out excess water, and then carefully peel the screen off. Cover the new sheet of paper with a piece of felt. Continue pulling sheets of paper until the couching stack has up to thirty sheets.

11. Pressing: It might be a good idea to move the stack to a bathtub for this step. Place the other baking sheet on top of the stack of newly made paper, then press down as hard as possible, pouring out any water that builds up. Stack the bricks on top of the stack, and wait for the water to stop pouring out. Gently separate the sheets, but keep them with attached to their felt backing.

12. Drying: There are several ways to dry the paper. Either hang it on a clothesline or rack, lay them out to dry on newspaper, or iron the paper on a cutting board covered with a dishcloth. Set the iron to the cotton setting, and do not use steam. Flip the stack after ironing for a minute, and repeat, flipping and ironing until the paper is quite dry, which should take about five minutes.

Making Paper from Recycled Fibers

Homemade paper can be made from anything from junk mail to elephant poop (believe it or not: http://poopoopaper.com). The materials needed to make paper at home are easy to obtain. A mold, or wooden frame with a screen stretched over it, allows water to drain out, but catches the fiber that forms the paper. Simply stretch a piece of old window screen over a picture frame, then staple it tautly in place. The container used to hold the water and pulp can be referred to as the vat. Make sure the vat is large enough for the mold, which will need to be submerged into the mixture. A sink or bathtub would be ideal, but a large plastic storage bin works just as well. Prepare a couching station next to the vat. Just place one of two baking sheets down, with a stack of newspaper wrapped in a towel on top. Spread a felt rectangle on top, making sure there are no wrinkles to interfere with the process.
An ordinary blender is needed as well, along with a few dozen felt rectangles, a wire whisk, bricks, and a sponge. Liquid starch can be added if the paper is intended for writing.


1. Preparing: First, assemble a variety of scrap paper. Junk mail, toilet paper, construction paper, brown paper bags, newsprint, cards, envelopes, tissue paper, and computer paper will all work. Try to find pieces without type or writing on them, as any ink will dull the color of the new paper. Separate the papers into rough color categories, and feel free to mix types of paper within those categories.

2. Shred or tear the paper up, and allow it to soak in water overnight, if possible. Though that is not necessary, it will make things easier.

3. Reducing to pulp: Fill the blender with warm water, and then add a handful of softened paper. Run the blender in short bursts until the paper is reduced to fine pulp. Repeat this process several times, emptying the blender into the vat, which should be filled half full of warm water. Add two teaspoons of the liquid starch into this mixture. Keep in mind that the amount of pulp will directly influence how thick the finished paper will be. Use the whisk to evenly distribute the pulp and liquid starch in the water.

4. Pulling a sheet: Submerge the mold into the vat, swirling it a bit to make sure the pulp that gathers on the screen will do so evenly. Lift it out slowly, waiting for excess water to drain off, and evaluate the thickness of the new sheet. If it looks too thick, scoop some pulp out of the vat; if too thin, add another blender’s worth.

5. Couching: After the mold stops dripping, carefully set the screen paper side down, onto the couching station. Use the sponge to press out excess water, and then carefully peel the screen off. If the sheet is somehow ruined, just scoop up the pulp and toss it back in the vat, stirring it up again. Cover the new sheet of paper with a piece of felt.

6. Repeat steps 4-5 until there is not enough pulp left in the vat to make a sheet of paper. Either add more of the same color pulp, or transition to a new color. There is no need to drain the water out of the vat—it will just make the first few sheets of the new batch speckled. Continue pulling sheets of paper until the couching stack has up to thirty sheets.

7. Pressing: It might be a good idea to move the stack to a bathtub for this step. Place the other baking sheet on top of the stack of newly made paper, then press down as hard as possible, pouring out any water that builds up. Stack the bricks on top of the stack, and wait for the water to stop pouring out. Gently separate the sheets, but keep them with attached to their felt backing.

8. Drying: There are several ways to dry the paper. Either hang it on a clothesline or rack, lay them out to dry on newspaper, or iron the paper on a cutting board covered with a dishcloth. Set the iron to the cotton setting, and do not use steam. Flip the stack after ironing for a minute, and repeat, flipping and ironing until the paper is quite dry, which should take about five minutes.

library trip

I found two books on bookbinding yesterday in the college library. Though I took a bookmaking course this semester, I want to be absolutely sure I can help Michaela make her journals for her trip to Wales this summer. We've ambitiously planned to even make the paper inside ourselves.

In the mean time, I'm hoping to find a quick alternative to buying a journal. Walt Whitman just pinned a few scraps of paper together, which he always had waiting in his pocket.

I just read an article about someone who creates journals out of recycled, already-printed-on office paper. That could really be interesting. http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2007/05/how_to_recycle_office_pap.html
and here are instructions: http://www.instructables.com/id/ENWQ7Z9F176TTFJ/?ALLSTEPS