There is something about taking fibers that seem to have reached the end of their usefulness, breaking them down, mixing them with water and making something new from them.
I have always loved the unpredictability of handmade paper. No two sheets are exactly alike. The uneven edges, the bits of fiber that refuse to disappear, the imperfections — those are the things that make each sheet beautiful to me.
Then I discovered weaving.
Weaving gives me something different. It brings me calm.
There is a rhythm to passing the yarn over and under, row after row. There is no need to hurry. My hands are occupied, but my mind has room to wander. Sometimes I think about what I am making. Sometimes I think about completely unrelated things. And sometimes, wonderfully, I don’t think about very much at all.
It is peaceful work.
When I finished this particular weaving, I was left with small pieces of yarn. Rust, green, blue, charcoal, cream. Too short to weave with perhaps, but still perfectly good yarn.
I couldn’t throw them away.
So I went back to my first love.
I cut the leftover yarn into tiny pieces and added them to the pulp for my handmade paper. And there were the colors from my weaving again, this time scattered randomly through soft sheets of paper.
I loved the connection.
The yarn that had traveled back and forth across my loom was now embedded in paper. In the weaving, the colors had their place. They followed rows and patterns. In the paper, those same fibers were free to twist, curl and land wherever they pleased.
And somehow they still belonged together.
I think that is one of the things I enjoy most about making things. One project doesn’t necessarily have to end when it is finished. The scraps from one idea can become the beginning of another.
My weaving gave me quiet hours to think.
The leftover threads gave my paper a story.
And somehow my first love and my newest one ended up together.