Resources: Plant Based with Winter Retted Fibers Debra Ketchum Jircik 3720 Gaffney Drive Eagle River WI 54521 715.479.9737 cell 715.891.3487 [email protected]

Recommended Winter Retted Fibers to Use from Midwest iris leaves day lily leaves milkweed

Alkaline to Further Cook Fiber if Needed Soda Ash (A tablespoon to a quart, approximately – PH 11 is cooking mix) Baking Soda (very mild, most useful for things like rhubarb stalks or fibers that might lead a little coax) Wood ash lye – make your own (PH is 10 to 13, depending on source) Thumb Test – cook is usually one to two hours – can you bread the fiber over your thumb? If so, it’s cooked enough. Thorough Rinse until water runs clear. (I reuse my cook water) Disposal – Neutralize your cook water before disposing with Vinegar to pH 7. Online Resources www.handpapermaking.org Lots of free beginners articles Formerly The Yahoo Papermaking group: Papermaking [email protected] www.freshpress.illinois.edu Agri-fiber research project at U of Illinois/Champaign/Urbana http://www.peacepaperproject.org/process.html www.papermakingresources.com Papermaking artist Catherine Nash has a great site and some wonderful instructional videos. Instagram – Follow Helen Hiebert and Hook Pottery(Andrea Peterson) on Instagram.

Suppliers www.carriagehousehandmadepaper.com This is the place to purchase the special woven screening to make molds. They also sell fibers of all sorts to make paper. http://arnoldgrummer.com/about-us.html Greg Markim, Inc. Milwaukee Wisconsin. Kits and equipment, oriented to education.

Recommended Books – Lots more but these are great places to start!

In the Field by Andrea Peterson The Papermaker’s Companion by Helen Hiebert Papermaking with Plants or Papermaking with Garden Plants and Common Weeds (same book, different edition) by Helen Hiebert

LEXICON OF PAPERMAKING – Charge - Add to a vat to replenish vat Source:www. fortnightjournal.com stock: “charge” a vat. By papermaker Akemi Martin, As passed down to her from her boss, Ruth Couching - The act of transferring the wet Lingen, who received it from her teacher, Walter Hamady, who taught at layer of pulp from the mould surface to the UW Madison for thirty years and ran felt.* In French, “coucher, meaning to lay Perishable Press. down. - The wood frame that fits on the Beating - The physical or mechanical mould to confine the pulp to its shape process that separates fibers, softening and when dipped in a vat of pulp.* fibrillating them to a usable pulp state.* Deckle edges - The natural, feathery edges created by the deckle on a sheet of paper.* - A molecular glucose chain of Hydrogen bonding - The electrostatic up to 5,000 units and the most plentiful attraction between hydrogen atoms in carbohydrate produced by plants. Cotton water helps to bring fibers together as the and linen fibers contain the most generous sheet is formed. As the final molecules of amounts, which constitutes ideal paper water leave the sheet during drying, substance.* hydrogen bonds form between the fibers.

Hog - The act of stirring up the slurry in the “Skinny dip” - When a mould is dipped in a vat immediately prior to forming a sheet. The very thin vat of pulp and picks up an almost vatman spreads his fingers on both hands and imperceptible layer of pulp.* shakes them beneath the surface of the slurry to evenly distribute the fibers that tend to Post - A pile of wet sheets and felts.* settle. The term comes from a mechanized Traditionally in European mills, a post device called an “agitator” or “hog” used in consisted of 144 wet sheets each separated British mills from 1800 on. The hog or paddle- from the next by a piece of felt somewhat wheel “keeps the macerated stock in the vat in larger than the size of the paper. constant movement and prevents it from Pellon - Polyester textile interfacing used in settling to the bottom of the vat.” (as observed place of felts in present day mills. by a French papermaker, writing about his Mould - The screen and wooden frame upon visit to the Matthias Koops paper mills in which paper is formed and drained.* In the Westminister, England in 1803.) Western tradition, the screen is either “wove” Kiss-off - When a sheet of paper which is still (the wires are a woven mesh) or “laid” (the on the mould is unsatisfactory, the mould wires lie side by side). surface is slapped onto the water surface of the “Vatmanʼs tears” - Imperfections within sheets vat, causing the pulp to fall back into the vat. of paper caused by drips of water onto the delicate surface of a wet sheet resulting in Fermentation and Papermaking - transparent spots in the finished paper. In papermaking, a process known as Retting allows fermentation to occur. Why Ferment? It loosens the cellulose from the non-cellulose materials in the plant and breaks down the non-cellulose materials, reducing or even eliminating the need to cook the fiber. .