black raspberry sludge
i cooked and cooked those raspberries
low heat, many hours, added vinegar
and now there's a pint of ink
fun work!
there are little black raspberry marks around the place
and outside
only a few juicy ones left.
many dried ones on the canes
since it was such a generous year,
the birds had plenty.
and the coyotes,
who leave their scat in insulting spots
(for fun, they are coyotes)
are lush with seeds.
i had a huge amount of "dirty" beeswax to deal with
after the cupboard,
honeycomb
and ant
disaster.
so in the spirit of making hay
i decided to stack the cloth that was covered in "dirty wax"
maybe you can see how thick it was
(there were thick "drips" as well)
to make a sandwich and transfer wax
and "dirt"
to a piece of case paper
i'd readied for a book
the stack included three pieces of abaca
i'd made long ago
that had pigment issues.
ok, so it was like this:
brown paper, white cotton pillowcase
abaca
case paper
beeswaxed cotton cloth-the straining cloth
(the other half of the pillowcase)
cotton cloth
brown paper...
anyway a BIG sandwich
got ironed.
a lot.
as the thick wax dispersed into the various layers
as did the "dirt".
i reduced the sandwich
to this
and this
and this and
refolded the case
used the various parts for signatures
and folded it back.
there was way too much bulk.
i cut much of the stationer's binding away
and was left
with a rather neat little cover
i will sew it up today
and make the final
rather sticky
beeswax and ant
book.
