Making more paper

Last autumn while cutting plants back in the garden in our annual tidy up I deliberately kept some bundles and hung them in the garage to dry in the hope I would be able to use them to make paper with later.
Finally I have some more time for things like this so I had a go with the first lot - a bundle of Echinops ritro (globe thistles).

It's all very experimental at the moment so I wasn't sure what to expect.  My first learning curve was to find that the storks were just too hard to use.  Hours and hours of boiling did nothing so I settled for just using the leaves.  But I was pleasantly surprised by the out come.  A fine green paper with lots of small detail.  I used more cotton too which gave me lovely thick paper.  I can feel another book coming on.

Compared with the onion paper you can see its a totally different colour, but the texture and feel is different too.  I look forward to seeing that other garden fibres produce.