By PPA member, Claire Brach
Last weekend 11 very enthusiastic Primrose Paper Arts members and friends turned up at the centre eager to learn how to turn silk fibres into paper. Strictly speaking I shouldn’t be using the word paper, probably more pseudo-paper, but for want of something better I’ll refer to our finished sheets as paper for this article. Purists among followers of this blog are encouraged to comment and submit their own terminology.
Starting with gummed silk hankies, silk cocoons and rods I showed them how to make yarn (and some knitted with it), soften the cocoons and stretch & shape the rods ready to go into their paper.
They then dyed each component before adding them into their sheets, which they formed from raw silk strippings.
All was concentration as people teased the fibres out …….
Then we decided to add dried plant material in as well.
It was a great day. I had a ball introducing everyone to some new skills they hadn’t tried before.
But, better than that, I enjoyed seeing the individual ideas and pieces each person came up with.
Of course I couldn’t resist including this sampler which looks to include most of the dye colours and ALL of the silk products.
Well, that’s one way to ensure you don’t forget anything you learned on the day!
Primrose Paper Arts Inc. 
This workshop was so much fun. Claire was a great tutor and shared so much with us. Everyone commented what a relaxing day it was but we still learnt so much. Thank you Claire
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It was a lovely day. The best part for me is seeing how a basic technique is interpreted by the participants into their own unique piece of work. We’re given the same materials, the same start point but each person sees something different and works their own magic into their creation. As a tutor it’s impossible to predict what the results will be and they are always an eye-opener.
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