Spinning paper and thinking about next weaving rescue

Today I wove three silk-dyed coffee filters. Hence the staining on my fingers, synthetics much more vivid than natural dyes, and the damp towel keeping the paper from drying out before I get it spun.

I did the spinning standing over a wastebasket with tissues in it, so the dangling thread didn't drop on the beige rug..

This is why artists wear black in the studio, particularly when working with charcoal. No charcoal here, but inadvertent dyeing. I'm told people think the black is a kind of uniform or signal. Except when worn by posers, it's just practical workwear.

So three bobbins ready for when I warp the Hokett to make side by side paper weavings.

And on the left side a cotton weaving I need to finish in some way. I drew all the warp threads through to one side, and I may make a series of braids and beads, for a sturdy cookbook bookmark. Fiber art serving culinary art.

New skills for old work

That method I just learned for fringeless weaving, I applied to a piece still on the loom because I need to use the loom.

Here it is on

And off, warps drawn through back and forth, worked pretty well

Then I went back to see if I could resolve the spaghetti junction I'd made trying to do the same thing with beginner's skills on a couple of finished pieces.

 I ended up with a wobbly but okay result. I did have to do a good bit of weaving in using a tiny crochet hook. But it ended up fairly well.

It's possible these pieces might become parts of assemblages with Woolly Books. Here's the second finished

 Spine side

Page side

See how pleasingly this binding allows pages to lie flat.

While I worked, I had a reading of Great Expectations going. MJam on YouTube, reading a couple of times a week, about half hour audios. I just found them so I'm listening in sequence. He's a good actor/reader.

  Dickens was really a spoken storyteller, though he wrote, and his work was never designed to be read in a big fat book. He wrote serial style, in episodes appearing regularly in a magazine. So it works well to break it up in audio form.  And I'm enjoying it more this way.

In our last knitting group, before the current hiatus, we were talking about how you associate your work with other memories.

 I read Great Expectations in book form as a kid, eating winegums, so the taste of that candy comes back even now when I think of it. And I wonder if, in turn, these weavings will make me think of GE in future?

Do you have associations like this?

Bookie at work, also paper spinner

It's hard to settle to making at the moment.  But once I started spinning, I calmed down and did much better.

This is finer thread, the strip cut at 1/4". It's surprisingly resilient to work with, as long as it doesn't get a) too wet or b) too dry. I spun a couple of coffee filtersworth.

And did the Coptic binding for one of the Woolly  Books. The pages for both are coffee filter paper.

The work was accompanied by audiobook of Destination Unknown, an Agatha Christie I wasn't familiar with.

One bonus from the uptick in handwashing and consequent lotioning: my hands are in better condition, not snagging threads. I must have been pretty sloppy before..

Framed. For now.

Framing is not a favorite task. But after quite a bit of cursing and maneuvering and opening and repositioning, the books trying to escape all the while, I did manage.

 This may have to be opened again. It's hung to see if the parts will hold up on exhibit,  not slump down on being vertical after a  while. They are adhered, but sometimes glue dries and everything slithers around.

 One good thing is that nowadays I don't get a frame cleaned, set, and closed and then find a cat hair under the glass. It's like not seeing a typo until you hit publish. You absolutely can not detect cat hair until too late.

So here it is

And here it is on my exhibit wall, which is just there to study pieces, not as home decor. It's strictly a workshop test, really.

Friends do like to poke around and see what I've done lately, though. So they have fun.  The pieces are a bit lopsided. But it's a working wall, defensive crouch here.

The sofa bears some of the results of last summer's learning, English paper piecing. I blogged about that if you're interested in checking the topics listed down the right column if the web version. That was an adventure.

And now I can do more spinning and weaving. A lot of ideas to try. And I have to assemble the books for the woven wool covers, too, probably using coffee filters for pages.

 But I'm really wanting to spin right now.

Draft presentation ideas, future paper materials

I've been mulling over how to present the three Little Books, with a view to a couple of exhibits, if they actually happen, but we do have to live in the subjunctive at the moment.

Anyway, here are a couple of rough thoughts

The top one is a kind of analog landscape, the linen echoing the books. I'm leaning towards it, rather than the bottom one which looks a bit busy.

This could all change. The frame you see is a shadow box, deep frame which won't crush the contents. They'll be behind glass, secured to the background burlap.

The strip of linen I dyed long ago.  The background fabric and linen are from a work I exhibited and am now upcycling.

This is just a way of thinking about how to do this presentation without committing to framing until it's ready.

And this may just look like a terribly messy living room.

 In fact it's two things at once: very overdue massive pruning of begonias, both of which were nearly six feet tall and staggering all over the place.

 One I grew from a single leaf, the other from a crafty cutting from a friend's house..gardener's larceny.

This little plant grew from a single leaf I pushed in at the base of the parent plant.

 Both the big plants will get their revenge by bushing out and growing rapidly to make up the shocking loss.

But it's also harvesting of plant material for my next foray into papermaking, when the weather's a bit warmer.

This pruned stuff will be cut up, cooked to a pulp, blended with abaca, to make paper. Watch this space, you'll see how.

Wool covered books in progress and an older piece

I cut the pages for two of the wool books from coffee filters.

 They're a bit brittle, probably from dyeing. And I cut card backing to reinforce the covers.  My fingers are a bit tired, so I'll wait on stitching a day or so.

But now I know how to do the Coptic binding, I can complete some other artist books I had done covers for, like the fabric ones shown with the wool books. They're 8"×7", big by comparison.

The stitching is the Japanese sashiko technique. I lined it with a Chinese brocade.  I haven't decided what kind of paper for the pages, maybe drawing quality.

And there are a couple of woven paper covers, mounted on card already. These were my own photographs, fed through a straight shredder.
 
You might want to try this, it's great fun.  You could use binding other than Coptic though, if you wanted to create a spine and end covers.

 You can create your own journal, or book for knitting and project notes. Or a field notebook for drawing and writing up interesting sightings from outdoors. I've made books to record gardening planting in the past, to remind myself where I'd planted perennials so as not to spade them up by mistake the following year.

I think self care includes making beautiful items for your own use.  Because you're worth it!

Three Little Books take a bow

So this is the paper thread series up to now. Signed, done.

Posing for their close-ups

Now what I learned will come with me for the next part of the project.

I need to bind the woven wool covers. I'm saying that to get myself to do it. Making pages, for some reason, puts me off. Once I start it's fine.

Paper thread books in progress. BIPS!

Spent a happy time tearing handmade paper for pages this morning and assembling signatures.

 Page edges out

Spines out

 The green paper is made from iris foliage from my front yard.

 The grey mixture paper I made nearly fifty years ago, in my college papermaking  course with wonderful artist Joan Needham. 

 It's a mixture of cotton linters, abaca and I forget what else. I notice some of the color came off on my fingers from handling it. This paper is retrieved from an old artwork which had run its course, been exhibited, and retired.

I found some antique silk threads in my stash, which will probably work well for stitching.

And since the books are jumping all over, I'm pressing them under the glass sheet on the coffee table, my go-to for pressing work, examining it without wearing it out, and for resting my teatray. Multi purpose. Later I'll do the binding.

After this I'll be figuring out pages and binding those wool covers you saw a while back before I got all into paper thread. They look big now, after working with the tiny ones.

I haven't talked much about the intent behind this series, mainly been showing process. But the intent is protest and reparations.

All my art since the disastrous presidential election has been protest. It's a determination to continue making art in the face of increasing encroachment on freedom of expression. It's to say that women can not be silenced.

 The use of paper thread, changing a commodity created at the expense of the earth into a small thing of beauty is about honoring the earth.

 The use of  cotton linters is a humble apology  to the people whose lives were destroyed by the cultivation of cotton, whose bodies were used as tools of the economy from which they were excluded. I can never use it without remembering that price, and trying to do my part in reparations. In using it with respect, not wasting even a shred.

And it's to say that power is not always about size. Small works can be powerful and significant. Humble materials, ancient skills of weaving, spindle spinning, hand stitching, are all a nod to the people who came before us.

This is what's in my mind as I work on the series. These are the goals I'm aiming for. In one sense  artworks are a byproduct, rather than the whole thing. The process of making them is a connection with the people who were there first.

And I have the luxury of making what I need to make, learning as I go, not having to make  what's required in a production process. My deadlines are upcoming exhibit opportunities, plenty of time yet to improve and make works worth looking at.

I always remember how free I am, and how I need to look out for those who aren't. The Izzy dolls are my protest against the cruel wars run by power mad men, to bring a scrap of comfort to children caught up in crisis, and to their  mothers.

This is all very heavy. But art is about coming face to face with yourself and your times. It's not all about making stuff, though that part is exciting and fun.

Back to work, chop wood, carry water, what's for lunch.

Laborious finishing of paper weaving

These paper tapestries were made before I knew about finishing using the drawn warp technique, which I am now converted to.

So the finishing was trickier, involving a fine crochet hook, and care and patience and that.

This is learning in progress, not very impressive, at least I don't think so. Maybe I shouldn't say that..

Anyway, this was a morning's work. Along with a couple of other covers.

First steps in Coptic stitching

It's best to learn this binding using bigger, sturdier, pages and stiff covers. I didn't do that, miniature size, soft tapestry covers, and handmade unruly pages.

So this, while a bit flaw-ridden, is not a bad first, considering how many obstacles I erected for myself.

And it opens nicely anywhere, the big advantage of the Coptic binding.

I know better how to proceed now.

First assembled Little Book, dress rehearsal

This is the assembly.

Covers are four selvedge cotton warp yarn, three signatures (groups) of pages, each signature four pages, handmade paper, red onionskins and abaca.

Right now the moving parts are just resting in place, before I stitch each signature then attach them a to each other and the covers.

 You can see how lively this paper is -- it goes sproing when you open it.

After stitching, I'll press it under some weight.My heart fills when I see this little work. So this is showing me the idea's working up to now.  Next I settle on what binding stitching to do, and what threads.

Happy camper.

Thrills and spills and our heroine wins through!

So all this learning happened today.

I realized that the four selvedge idea works with loops, not individual warp threads. This means you need a loom that uses a looping method of warping. Such as all my notched cardboard looms. Or my dear Hokett loom.

 I could have been doing four selvedge all along. It was fun making the fancy jig idea, and, to be fair, I did make an award-winning tapestry on it, so it was hardly a total loss. But it coulda been more fun.

And in the course of finding cardboard to use for the new tiny loom, I realized that a couple of my older tapestries still had uncut loops.

 If I'd known about  all this a couple of weeks ago I'd have better finished covers but oh well.

So I tried out the technique on two of them, and quickly found this wasn't learner country. Too big, too easy to get lost in pulling direction. But I did learn a bit. I'll have to finish those pieces some other way.

Meanwhile I soldiered on.

And finished the little cotton warp book cover

And did the warp pulling thing.

AND IT WORKED.

I can die happy. Not for  a while though, got a lot of stuff to do yet. Mainly much better Little Books.

Now to do the second cover to this one, cotton warp and weft, the weft dyed like this one with something pinkish, probably red onion skins.

And spin paper for wefts.

Aside from that, not a lot happening.

Despatches from the front

More thinking has been happening. After the talk about paper, I began to think about collecting foliage for paper pulp. This usually involves collecting from out front, iris, daylily, but that's not a thing in March.

And I remembered my house is full of foliage, quite a bit needing to be pruned, because it's gone mad since the daylight has started to lengthen.

Viz:

Including the leaves I trimmed from the March flowers. I can include the flowers in the mix.

And there are a couple of big paper artworks around here, while we we're thinking paper, the left made with second cut cotton linters, the right with a combo of abaca, banana, fiber and some cotton linters.  The right one dates back to papermaking class in the 70s, this stuff is so stable it will outlive us all. This is just a tangent, where was I..

So papermaking will happen, with other ingredients as well as boiled leaves.

Meanwhile I've been casting a cold eye on my current tapestries and thinking better continue with four selvedge technique, so as to get a better finish.

 The idea of four selvedge is that there's practically no finishing beyond removing the tapestry from the loom. What there is, though, is fiddling about with special jigs and warping and my set-up was for much bigger work, not miniatures.

 I blogged about this a while back, and if you're interested, you'll  find links to posts about four selvedge in that endless list down the right of the screen.

So I looked around for ideas and see I can probably make the exact size loom I need very simply, using materials I have. Weave the loom completely full, slip the weaving off , adjust the warp threads, no fringes.

So here we go

I can also use this little loom as a guide to creating there mold I'll need to make paper to the right size for the covers.

I think I'd better stop and pick this up tomorrow with new energy.  Enough excitement for one day, all these discoveries.

Paper weaving done for now

So I've got the makings of two paper-woven Little Books.

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Next I'm going to weave using cotton warp for weft, too. A chance for a bit of fancy stuff there.

After that I will make pages and start binding them.

Ze moment of trrrrruth, as Poirot would say.