I realized that I’d backed myself into a scheduling corner. (I hadn’t made any allowance for drying time. Rookie mistake, I know!) So I went back to the studio at 10:00 pm and made three pounds of paper.

Some things I learned: very thin sheets can actually dry in eight hours. Our felts are starting to shed in irksome ways. The third post of the night is very, very wet (I knew this going into it, but there was water everywhere) and it is much more challenging to couch sheets without sliding near the top of that one. (Of course, it was also 3:30 in the morning, so … maybe that had something to do with it.)

I’m pretty sure none of the factory roaches made it into the vat.

Start with quilting scraps:

In the beater:

Worry that the pulp is going to turn out horrible:

Think maybe it will be ok after all:

Admire the color / texture of the wet sheet:

Wonder what to do with this unexpectedly excellent paper:

(Julia collected quilting scraps from her mother and a couple of other people. I made them into pulp, and she pulled sheets. We’re doing another batch and then we really do need to come up with something to do with the paper because how cool is that?)

Funny story: both of these papers are pale blue.

(Cotton rag in pale blue, with handfuls of darker leftover pulps to tweak the final color. Still mostly cotton. Some linen.)