Pseudo Tessellation

Place-mat, Table Runner, Table Cloth, Quilt, Wallhanging. Take your pick of what to call this model.

It was meant to be a Table Runner but the effort involved in making and assembling so many small pieces got old when I reached a size that you can stand a vase on. The starter paper varies in size from a small 5-1/2 inch square to a tiny 1 inch by 1-3/4 inch rectangle.

I like the look of the completed model but I am not in a hurry to repeat it. Needless to say, when I do repeat it there will be a few changes resulting from the experience.

Although the model holds together very well the thickness of the paper used for the tabs on the back side resulted in a tendency for the tucked in parts to come loose while working on neighboring pieces. Next time I will use tab paper which is thinner than the rest of the work instead of thicker. The reason for the negative polarity of the paper thickness was that the tab color that I wanted to use only came in the thicker weight. If you look carefully you will see that it is a lighter shade of the copper color used for the main pieces.

The edges need special treatment, especially for this sized piece. Does anyone have any suggestions?

Water Lily Chopstick Holder or Vase

The waterlily kusudama has been given a central column which has morphed it into a vase or a chopstick holder.

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.

This Way Up Update.

Today I folded a couple more copies of the This Way Up box. The one made from Stardream text weight paper came out well.

The one I made from wet-folded card-weight Sorbet Duo was not so successful. The paper is just too bulky to look good.



This is one of my first experiments with wet-folding. It should really be called "damp folding" as a soggy piece of paper warps horribly. I lost a few good pieces of paper this way over the last couple of days.

Michale LaFosse recommends using a spray bottle to dampen the paper. This did not work very well for me. The bottle I purchased from the super-market was meant for cleaning fluids, not for plant misting. Even the finest setting was too coarse to provide an even non-blotchy film on the paper.

I discovered that a wrung-out common-or-kitchen-variety sponge wiped across the paper several times produced about the right dampness. I rinsed the sponge thoroughally first. This was fortunate as it was primed with some detergent. Check for this possibility if you aim to copy this method.

I used a large deep flat bottomed plastic tray to sit the paper in as I sponged it. After about a minute I transfered the damp paper to a large piece of plastic. This was cut down from a large zipper bag from which I had removed the zipper and the front section. This protected my Division Helper sheet. Trying to align wet paper on top of a printed card was obviously not going to work.

Dampening the paper certainly helped to avoid the cracks which can appear in card when it is folded. The method resulted in a very firm and stable set of modules.

Putting the modules together, however, was very difficult. The dampness prevented tears but the paper marred when bulky sections were dragged tightly across adjacent sections.

My conclusion is that card weight material is not suitable for this model, or for any other modular creation where assembly requires that several layers of material be squashed tightly together.

Success with card weight material is dependent on a suitable design which factors in the thickness of the paper, its strength and its spanning ability. This is what I did with my card weight "sox box". The design for this does not work with text weight material without a few adjustments.

A Tall Box

One of this week's serendipitous happenings was the creation of a tall box. I was playing around with inserts for the Arrow Head (Fish Base) box and came up with a lid which held together in a novel way. It seemed to require a tall base so that came next. It was definitely the week for tall things.

It is a bit stark in black and white. The dark color obscures the criss-cross markings on the base. which match those on the white part of the lid.


I am not sure that I have finished with this idea. It may go through some more development. Crease patterns will have to wait. I am not sure that I could reverse engineer the result just yet. The problem with accidental foldings, especially if they have gone through several trial foldings, is that they may be impossible to get back together in the same manner once they are unfolded.

Tall Vases

Here is another venture into the realm of vases. These ones are based on a rectangle.

These are vases for paper flowers or other objects which do not need to be regularly infused with di-hydrogen-monoxide. Because of the side steam, these models would not hold water, even if the folding material were waterproof.

Of course, this limitation could be overcome if the seam was welded, glued or stuck up with tape but we will leave that to non-purists who are do not concern themselves with following the traditional rules: no cuts, no glue, no tape, no staples. Perhaps you are thinking of those beautiful kusadamas that would behave like falling rain drops were it not for the presence of sticky stuff at the joints.

The models are relatively easy to fold although the final floor moves are a little tricky. Crease patterns will be supplied later. Just enjoy the photos for now.

This Way Up!

It has been a very busy week of folding and design.

The Fish Base Box has now been supplied with taller bases.










One version has become a "This Way Up!" Box.



Another version preserves the arrowhead and disguises the shaft in mono-color.
















There are now a number of alternative lids, all of which continue to be useful as bowls when upturned.

One of the variations takes inserts. The possibilities for these are apparently endless. While most of the inserts serve no purpose other than decoration, some can be used to hide flat material placed in the center of the lid while others can be used to hide material within themselves.


Another version of the lid has an alternative folding for the arrow head which avoids the difficult task of tucking in the side pieces accurately. In my opinion, it is not as neat as the original but this may not be an important consideration for a beginning or novice folder.

Other variations of the lid provide sleeker or more minimalist creasings. A couple of these can be put together to form a short box of their own. In this case, the folding paper needs to be a quarter inch narrower for the one which will form the base.

















Here are some generic crease patterns for the tall bases. I have not supplied crease patterns for the new lids as most of the variations are not difficult to figure out once you have made a model of the parent design.