THE CARUSO CUBE

A few posts back I dedicated an origami quilt to Paul Bachman, a presenter on Serius XM Pops radio. The other presenter is Vincent Caruso. Just so the two boys don't fight, I have dedicated this kusudama to Vincent.

Since the kusudama flower ball shape is cubic I have dubbed it the Caruso Cube. When I make a kusudama version of the Bachman Quilt I guess it will become the Bachman Ball. Alliteration is such fun, isn't it?


Like a number of things I have been designing lately, the Caruso Cube uses the same connection idea that I have been using for models using a carrier box method. In this case the flower itself is the "carrier". It is a little weaker than the full method but works just fine for light balls, especially when the intersecting angles are relatively sharp.

The leaves are formed by increasing the size of the basic connector piece so that there is enough paper to form leaflets at the ends. These form a pleasing triple leaf arrangement at the intersection points of the flowers.


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The flowers are a variant of the classic twist fold.

The stamens begin life as a variant of the classic frog base.







The blue flower is my first model I made in this series. The stamens in this model are relatively short, something which required that the paper for this piece be cut to a size which was not a natural factor of the other pieces used in the model.


In the next models I decided to make the stamens a little larger in order to keep the paper sizes relative to each other.




The Curuso Cube was made from 6 flower modules: 2 metallic cream, 2 metallic blue and 2 metallic navy. The stamens were made from similar colors with the addition of a paler blue.


The hanging method is different from the one used in traditional models. I used a small metal ring, the kind used in lampshade construction, as a way to attach hanging cords without straining the glueless connection points of the ball. First three threads were tied onto it. The threads were tensioned by tying another piece of thread around the cords about three or four times until it formed a ring. I then pushed this yarn ring down until it pulled the three cords to a point in the center of the metal ring. The completed cord and ring construction was inserted into the model just before the last couple of flowers were connected together.


The resulting model hangs well without undue strain on its connecting creases.