Vermicelli.

I am working in a sketch book made in India and I wouldn't be surprised if it's the famous Elephant Dung paper. However I think that it may be produced in Sri Lanka. More elephants there, you see. If it were made in India, it would possibly be made from cow dung. Got to make do with what you've got, I say. Still, my pencil occasionally collides with rather sizable pieces of straw no matter what chewed it.

Whether or not there is poop involved, it works fine for what I am doing: making rough sketches for designs that I am going to stencil on fabric (very excited). While drawing these, I became suspiciously aware of their familiarity until I realized that I grew up with this design. My family had a company that made gorgeous (now there's a word I seldom use) embroideries on evening gowns, bridal gowns and all kind of gowns. I call them gowns and not just dresses because they belonged to another world, where people dressed up and went to the opera, wore gloves and stolas, and, for heaven's sake, used cigarette holders. Those people did not wear a dress, they wore a gown and an especially gorgeous one if it had been through the hands at Holland Artistic Embroidery Works.