Numbers confound

The most confusing part of going from one class straight to the next one day after another is that I keep waiting to herd twelve students only to realize that this class has seven. So far, so good. I have an INTERN, which is an amazing and wonderful luxury. Especially because the WSW interns are really, really good. Everyone knows that, and every former intern I've met from here has been a great papermaker and goes onto success in the field. Here is Susan with a big piece of bark lace.

This pile of hanji is always a telltale sign that I am teaching jiseung cords somewhere in the world.

How lucky am I that there is a hook in the ceiling right above the big vat? This means that it's possible to set up modified webal tteugi, rather than doing straight ssangbal tteugi in this class. It would be the first place I've taught webal outside of Cleveland, though I do demo it in Boston when I teach there. The first demo two years ago was not great, but the one I did this year convinced me that it's worth continuing to test this student size.

Ellen is making a set of cords with relative ease. This is always a hard piece but a good thing to do while cooking or waiting for other things to happen. This morning we beat outside, thanks to my Boston students who didn't feel like making as much paper as I thought, so I had plenty of kozo cooked and rinsed to complement the kozo we cooked and rinsed today. I tested a lime water bath directly after the cook, which worked GREAT to remove soda ash residue quite quickly. I'm still distracted by a terrible health insurance/billing nightmare that has been going on for almost a year, but I'm hoping by tomorrow, I will be much more focused.