Emergence from Down Under

It's been quite a while since I posted anything here. As previously mentioned, I have been extremely busy assisting an Australian friend deal with a professional lynching team. Unfortunately the abuse continues, but there has been as long enough lull to have an "orgami break".

I have developed quite a number of new models and continue to work on old ones. The modular vase is up to the Mark 10 version now, and I am still not entirely happy with it. I have had to solve quite a few problems along the way. There will be more about this in future posts

Here are some preview photos of things I have been working on.


There is a large series of vases. Here are examples.

The blue one has a weak bottom. The pink and grey one has a lid which is flimsy compared to the base. The tall yellow pot, made from legal sized paper, works very well.















The final tall vase version. The lid is a little crumpled in the photo because it is the prototype.














There is another modular vase under development. It bears some resemblance to the tesselated blue vase above but the shape is different and the bottom does not fall out :-) It joins pieces of paper both horizontally and vertically: 12 Silver Rectangles in total. More later.



Here is a squash bowl. Pack it flat and assemble it when needed.














Here is the final version of the Pocket Box with firmly fitting lid. Pack it flat, put it in your pocket and take it out and assemble it when needed.

























This box and lid are made from the new Orange Coated card weight paper. The lid is pitched like a roof. This is another relatively easy box to fold.












I experimented with flowers again. I call this one a Quad Lily because it has four petals and looks approximately like a lily. It does not resemble any flower that I know actually grows somewhere, but it looks nice. The lilies will eventually be connected to form a kusadama and/or a 3D quilt. The current connector template is made from a piece of recycled printed paper and is not fit to be photographed. You will just have to wait patiently until I get around to working on this model again.













I am still fascinated with hexagons so there are various hex bowls with lids.


Series One. The base is a year old. The lids are new. Note the upside down yellow lid which also doubles as another bowl.
























Series Two













I am still experimenting with ways to connect pieces of paper to form large models.


These designs connect four pieces of paper firmly and decoratively. They are relatively easy to fold and should make quite a difference to what can now be achieved with origami quilts.

CPs for the Water Lily Kusudama Series

Here are crease patterns for the Water Lily Kusudama and its derivatives and attachments. Unfortunately the CPs do not tell the whole story. There are some twists and tricks in putting these things together which are not at all obvious from the CPs. If you are a novice to middle level folder you may have to wait until I complete the diagrams before enlightenment is possible.

Begin by making a hexagon from a rectangle. The pattern is scaled for American Letter paper but the same concept applies equally well to an A4 sheet.

These are "rough and dirty" instructions which avoid me posting a full set of careful diagrams. If they leave you confused try Googling for better ones until I post some myself.

Divide the paper into four equal parts lengthwise. Mountain fold the bottom corners up to the quarter crease marks. This will give you sharp corner angles and two sides of the hexagon. Make the valley creases by appropriately lining up the edges. Complete the hexagon by mountain folding the paper along the appropriate edges. If you consider how the creased section will reflect when folded you can figure out which edges to line up. Try it out with a piece of scrap paper first.




The following CP is a stage along the way to making the Water Lily Kusudama units. It will provide you with the hex star and legged dish. I suggest that you fold the overlapping sections half way around and then unfold them and start at a different point. The final moves are a lot less confusing when the paper has already been primed to fold in the right direction.




The additional creases shown here will provide you with the water lily unit. Although they are shown on the back side of the paper they are made from the front. If you end up with the unit by following these CPs in the absence of step by step diagrams I will be quite impressed. Send me a photo to prove it. You will need eight water lily units for the kusudama and/or outer skin of the chopstick holder or vase.

The units are put together with the aid of strips made from the cut offs from the starter rectangle. They are four hex grid triangles long by one hex grid triangle wide. You need three of them per flower. Double the ends over and insert them into the matching shape that you will find by gently lifting the internal petal of a hex section and carefully pulling up the two flaps. Push the internal petal back down to lock them in place. Bend the strip on the central crease and insert the angled other end into a corresponding side of another flower. Continue until you run out of flowers to connect.

The next CPs are for the upgraded version of the central tube/vase. In order to get one that exactly fits the dimensions of the square left by the edges of the connected flowers, take a starter rectangle of the same size used to make the starter hexagons and crease it at the three-fifths point. Use my division helper to do this easily. (See earlier post.)

Next divide the three-fifths section into four equal parts and relect two of these on to the remaining paper. Cut off the left over section. Fold the rest according to the CP.


Roll up from the right hand side. Loosen the central section a little and twist the left hand rolling under the right hand rolling at the central point or thereabouts. I am afraid this a hard to describe in words. If you have made Kenneth Kawamura's twist box you will understand the procedure. If you can't figure it out then omit the odd configuration on the right hand side base section, roll the thing up starting from the right hand end and simply tuck the last flap under. The only difference is that the internal floor does not look quite so neat. If you are going to fill the tube up with something and don't intend to peer into its depths very often then this is probably quite adequate aesthetically and quite strong enough as well.

Unlike the model in the earlier photographs, this one has a triangular slash on just one of the external walls and a matching one on an internal wall. As well as being decorative, the slashes prevent noticeable sagging on the long side walls.

The result is pretty strong and sturdy but not, alas, waterproof. Don't fill it with fluid and use it for real flowers. If you are going to fill it with heavy things then you can strengthen it further (at the expense of shortening it) by turning over a narrow strip at the top. You can avoid unwanted crumpling by making 45 degree creases in the corners of each section before folding the material over to top. You can then ease it over a section at a time. Of course, pictures or detailed diagrams would help. Unfortunately preparing these takes more time than I am prepared to spend at the moment. Manana. (Where's the tilda when you need it?)



Filling in the square holes begins with a procedure similar to the internal tube. Take a piece of paper the same size as that used for the hexagon starter for the kusudama flower. Make a crease at the three fifths mark. Fold two squares from this section and discard the remainder. Fold each square to match the CP. You will need four squares (that is, two sheets of paper.)

In order to make the side tabs match the hexagonal angles into which they will slot make a template angle from a piece of the scrap, line its base up with the base line of each tab and fold the right side of each tab around the template. Lift up tabs in the pockets of the remaining hex sections of the water lilies and slip the tabs into them. Adjust. These square sections are not held together as firmly as the water lily pieces are to each other but they are not especially fragile either.

Enjoy!

Star Dish with Legs and Waterlily Kusudama

This has been a very busy week. I am in the process of putting the finishing touches to several new designs.

I spent a half hour away from the problems associated with these and fiddled with a hexagon.





The result was a star









which morphed into a dish that stands on legs and snaps back into the star when you are finished with it












which morphed into a water lily








which morphed into an eight piece kusudama.


The kusudama is held together quite firmly by tabs cut from the scrap material left over after converting an American Letter sheet into a hexagon. No glue.



At a later date I intend to fill the square holes with leaves.



Crease patterns and instructions will come later.





Coming up is a placemat/table runner/wall hanging pseudo-tessellation which is made from square-based quilt-like modules and rectangular tabs. There is also another vase in production.