I only have four sheets of the 1953 paper left
It's a Swedish almanac from 1953, the paper is thin and slightly grey and it takes paste without cockling. I've been cutting from the same four sheets for a year and a half. Now I have four sheets left and I keep changing my mind about whether the last piece should use it at all.
The sensible answer is not to. Use something else, keep the paper. But then it sits in the flat file forever being saved, which is its own kind of waste. I have a whole folder like that. Things too good to use.
Currently the four sheets are under a board with a jar of paste on top so they don't curl. That has been their state for eleven days.
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The "too good to use" folder is real and I have one too. Two years ago I bought a really nice linen panel for a painting I'd been planning forever, and it's still leaning against the wall in my studio because every time I'm ready to start I think, no, this one isn't good enough for it yet. Which means it's just a wall decoration now.
I don't know anything about bookbinding paper, but I'd say use it. A painting on it is a painting. Four sheets under a jar for who knows how long is four sheets not doing anything. If you've been cutting from the same batch for a year and a half you already know how it behaves, so you'd be working with something familiar instead of guessing at a new surface.
That said I get the other side. Sometimes the answer is you're not ready yet, and that's fine too. Just don't let "not yet" quietly turn into "never."🙂
Two years against the wall is a long time. At least my four sheets are flat, so there's that.
You're right though. Half a year of cutting from it and I know exactly how it behaves, which is the whole reason I keep reaching for it. The piece I'd be scared of ruining is the one I've already made twenty times in my head.
I think I'll use it. If it goes wrong the paper's gone either way, and a bad piece under a jar is the same loss as a bad piece on the table.
The linen one is more honest than the paper one, I think. A panel against the wall at least admits what it is. Four sheets under a jar pretending to be a plan is a bit more self-deceiving.
I keep one drawer of things I don't cut from. I've stopped pretending it's for a piece. It's just a drawer now, and that's fine. The rest gets used, and used paper has an edge that saved paper never will.