Cold to HOT

It has been a busy, busy week, but also highly productive because I set our production goals at 50 sheets a day, and put the burden on me to pick up slack. Which is great, as I very much need to move around and start to lose the winter sedentary body that I've been dragging around. Here are very poor images of the green, blue, and yellow pigment tests after teaching my apprentices how to pigment fiber.

Today was VERY exciting because we finally plugged in our new heat dryer from U of Iowa that Julie so kindly delivered last weekend and it gets hot! Hot enough that the familiar steam comes off of the paper once you brush it on. Of course it has hot spots and we need to eventually replace the screws with stainless ones, but this is a great option. I was disappointed with myself for being too tired last weekend to rescue the Japanese kozo cooked in wood ash lye—I let it sit in the cooking liquor for too long before we rinsed, so the final paper is too soft. Sigh. I know better, that you can do everything right but get one step wrong and there goes your lovely batch of paper.

At least our tororo is enjoying the sunlight. I wish I had more time to talk to them. I'll go in tomorrow to rescue the Thai kozo (less of an issue because it never cooks down enough in the first place), rinse, pull more sheets, and pick more Japanese kozo before hand beating. The warm weather makes me nervous. The pressure is on!

I pulled over 50 sheets yesterday with the Japanese kozo on my Japanese sugeta using the folded edge technique rather than threads to separate. Ivey and I dried these all morning and then tried to visit the Cleveland Flea, but it was a traffic/parking nightmare, so we visited Zygote instead and then Superior Pho, before returning to load the big drybox. I would have done it yesterday but knew people would freak out by all the noise with our first opening of the year (and a gallery talk today).

Speaking of noise, the garage door guys came today to start work on the new door. This one will be history very soon (anyone need metal to scrap?). Yesterday was warm enough for Tom to pull out the outdoor furniture so that he and Kirstin and Ivey and I could have lunch in the garden. I made a salad for all because it was a salad kind of day and all of us women were making paper. All of that wore me out but last night's Zygote benefit and Morgan opening were great, especially because I was able to carpool with friends. Today was too hot for my liking (shaking fist at global warming for taking away true spring) but I know it's nothing compared to what is actually to come! No time to waste; hoping to make paper every day until the swelter and bugs arrive.