Making paper

My rough-and-ready method of making paper involves J-cloths instead of felts for couching and metal mesh instead of mold-and-deckle. It also involves patching with further pulp lifted via the mesh, where necessary. But as with "proper" papermaking, many variations are possible. Janet used spices for colour, and is adding another layer of pulp on top -

She and Karen took their wet bits of paper home with them, so I don't know how the spice-colours look when dry, but I'm sure she'll do something wild with them.

To the leftover pulp I added a page from a chinese book, chopped up with pinking sheers, and made a few sheets with threads laid between two layers of pulp. This is the wet-and-transparent version -
When dry, the paper definitely has two sides

Take a deep breath and pull out the strings -

Next steps and/or possibilities:

- put the bits of text only under the strings, so they are revealed when the strings are taken out

- dip strings in ink, so that the ink spreads through the wet paper

- make a long strip with long strings

- make these six sheets into a dos-a-dos book (this means deciding what to use for the cover)