Blue Thursday

This week, I finally received the abaca paper yarn AND abaca paper I ordered, from Australia, and England, respectively.  What's so special about abaca?  It's made from a relative of the edible banana plant, and has very strong fibers.  This what your tea bag paper is made from.

The yarn comes in skeins.  It is extremely fine, much finer that I would ever be able to cut for paper cord. 

I dyed part of one skein-

I also dyed the abaca paper, (which only comes in white) painted on gold swishes, and used a sharpie for the quote. This will get folded and cut up later for more paper cord.

Some ceramic dishes I made came out of the kiln, so I added some gold touches and glaze.  I really liked the areas of crazing.  Each dish is only about 3-4" across.  I think I'm going to start selling these little guys.

more paper

I've been playing around with different decorating ideas.  I used fabric markers on this one.  I've tried 'regular' markers before, but they tend to bleed if you are getting your paper wet for spinning.

Here's a piece of washi-calligraphy paper that I used sumie ink on.  You have to use a lot of ink for it to show.

Today I found two kinds of Japanese weaving with gold leaf om paper. One is actually a yarn, the other is slit paper as the weft, and not spun.

http://www.takuminohako.com/products/detail.php?product_id=67
This website explains the process.

Saga nishiki is gold covered paper which is kept flat for the warp threads, and woven with silk weft. http://www.wormspit.com/saganishiki.htm

I put some copper leaf on Thai unryu:

It turned out pretty nicely.