Handmade paper

Top-spring bulbs; bottom-mulberry

Top-nettles; bottom-NZ flax

Left-parsely; right-scraped mulberry sticks

All from the Papermakers of Victoria workshop with Gail Stiffe today.

Making paper from plants

I travelled the long road to Bundoora and home of the Victorian Papermakers today to get some tips and tricks on making paper from plants with papermaker expert Gail Stiffe. Gail is also an amazing bookmaker and President of the Papermakers. The stables at Coopers Settlement, Bundoora Park is a wonderful place to visit and adjoins the Bundoora Homestead Art Gallery. I didn’t have time to check the gallery out today but will next time I am in the vicinity.

Gail had pre-prepared some plant pulp but also demonstrated the beating machines on NZ flax. We also prepared mulberry branch pulp from scratch. It was a fantastic learning experience, thank you Gail and the rest of the participants for a great day. The paper pulps we used were parsley, nettles, spring bulbs and the NZ flax and mulberry. I also came home with some leftover pulp which is in the freezer and will be used with the 4th year education students in December.

Steaming the mulberry branches

Hand beating the mulberry pulp

Couched paper in the press

Results in the next post as WordPress refuses to load any more pictures.

Twining and stitching with GeeTAG

The September and October meetings of GeeTAG were devoted to twining recycled materials and stitching them into vessels of choice. I used several Op Shop silk shirts, cut into strips and twined before being stitched into a hanging nest and a free form style of basket. I will embellish these further. The nest has some beading added to the hanging cord. The basket is based on the idea of rock pools so there may be a lot more attachments to this one.