T Stands for Tuesday & Paper Making & a Surprise from Nature

  Hello everyone and welcome to my blog,

Tuesday is where we gather together with a drink related post and join with our hostess Bleubeard and Elizabeth-find the link in my right hand column.

A few days ago I shared a post about being inspired by my friend Barbara to make paper from dried weeds. Hubs thinks what I collected around our pond is canary grass. (note: if you have not already met Barbara she is an amazing artist)

After doing some things outdoors in the gardens I decided it was time to make paper this morning (Monday). The weeds I had collected had been soaking for a few days (I did drain and add fresh water each day), as I worked out in the butterfly garden all weekend. My body needed a break from that today so decided to make paper.

I decided to go with Barbara's recipe and use 1 tablespoon of washing soda per 1 quart of water. (many recipes go by the weight of the fiber-I think this recipe is better, and the washing soda is less expensive than my soda ash  (used in natural dyeing) that I switched to this also)   
     I added enough water to have a few inches of water above the weeds-plenty of water to move around in. I let it all simmer for about 3 hours. I am glad I stopped when I did or the pulp would have been too mushy-slimy. I think this is a part of the paper making process when using natural materials to keep an eye on things as it simmers to make sure the pulp does not get over cooked.
    My batch of dried weeds had lots of stems that will not break down with this method. The grass I used had stems that went up through the entire plant. I decided not to worry about that and let it get whirled up in the blender.

This is the pot after simmering and I am straining it into a colander.

You need to rinse the fibers well to get rid of the washing soda

Below is how it looks after rinsed-you can see that the broken down fibers will be the pulp for paper making-the rest is all those stems-I left them in for textures

At this point I was going to take my colander and pot of very hot liquid outdoors and strain the rest of the fibers out. Then I noticed what a gorgeous brown color I had. Wow another natural dye??  So I grabbed another big pot and strained it into that. (Note all of my pots, strainers, cups, measuring spoons etc are all designated craft supplies-never for food cooking)

  I got to thinking I don't have anything pre mordanted, but then I remembered I had a couple silk scarves I purchased from Dharma Trading to dye with.  So I mixed up some alum (mordant-fixative) in a little water added that to this left over water and added a silk scarf.
  Surprise!!

This is the color after just about 15 minutes soaking in the "dye" bath This liquid was still pretty hot-but cool enough for silk-I had discovered that to dye naturally with silk it will not tolerate allot of boiling liquids. I am going to let this sit in the bath til later tonight or maybe even til tomorrow morning. Then I will rinse it in cool water and let it dry-and see how dark it will remain.  This was a much stronger dye than a coffee or a tea dye so am excited about it.

On to the paper making.

I have a very simple paper making kit I bought from Grummer's. This one is the perfect size for me and very simple-I love it. I can dip it into the pulp or hold it and pour over it-I did both methods with this project.

My first two papers I poured over but they were too thick-too much pulp in them. So, I tried some by dipping but was more difficult with this particular pulp so I switched back to pouring over but instead of from the blender I took a small cup and poured over slowly.

Here are the photos-I start with filling the blender (also designated only for crafts) half full of water then add a big handful or more of the pulp whirl it up good pour into my pan. For dipping my mold into this I need about 3 blender fulls. Like I had mentioned this paper was easier to pour over the mold. As I blended more pulp I used the water in the pan to fill up the blender half full each time instead of fresh water. You use a sponge through the screen or the plastic sheet to remove allot of the water from the paper. When doing these natural fibers like the corn husk paper as well, I keep the papers more wet-was easier for me to take them off the sheet for drying.

   From Grummer I also bought a pack of sheets, the size of my papers to absorb more of the water-these are really nice and I need to buy me another pack.

There is a fine screen under this paper

This photo is holding the mold in my left hand and pouring the pulp over it from a small cup

I use a very heavy and thick dictionary covered in plastic bags to weight down the papers after they come out of the mold

Then I set them out on those absorbing papers to dry-I will need to change up the absorbing papers or place them on the towel once mostly dry

I was very pleased I ended up with 9 papers. My back was telling me to stop ha ha but I finished just in time at 1:30 pm to make us our meal.

You can see all those stems had gotten broken up smaller in the blender

When I drained off the liquid from the pan I had just a little glob of pulp left. So I just hand formed it. Might use it for a harvest moon in my journal pages

Next up I am going to have to try making papers from fresh greens outdoors-grasses, baby leaves etc-more fun in the kitchen ha ha

    Since this post was quite long I will share my butterfly garden project in a seperate post.

 The drink I am sharing this week is a mule. I hadn't had one since last year. Actually I had never heard of a mule before until the recipe came with the bottle of huckleberry vodka I had bought last year on my trip to Yellowstone Park. The mule has been around for a long time just came back around I guess.

   I fill the glass with ice, add a shot of vodka-this one Tito's is gluten free, a good splash of lime juice and then fill it up with ginger beer. I like this brand but I buy the diet to save from drinking all of that sugar. and this is called ginger beer but it is not beer at all-just a soda. I you love ginger you will love this. (my glass looks empty but there is a little bit left on the bottom lol)

Happy T Day everyone!

Update: It is about 6 pm here now and the dye bath is cold-so I dumped it out and rinsed the silk scarf and then added a fabric softener (for hand dyed)  I love the color-very soft, it will be a bit lighter once dried. it is almost a soft yellow instead of a brown