We first became acquainted with the story of the 1,000 paper cranes when we saw a “flock” of the origami birds at the home of a good friend.
An ancient legend says that if a sick person folds 1,000 cranes, that person will be made well. The legend moved into the modern era when a young Japanese girl named Sadako Sasaki was diagnosed with leukemia and began folding paper cranes.
Sadako’s story is told in the book “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” by Eleanor Coerr (Puffin Modern Classics, paperback, $3.99). In addition to a sensitive retelling of Sadako’s tale, the little book also contains the best instructions we’ve found for folding the cranes.
To atone for being unable to give step-by-step instructions for last week’s origami flower ball, we’ll be keeping this week’s column banter to a minimum and provide complete instructions for folding a Japanese crane.
Your assignment – should you choose to accept it – is to master the technique and make at least 10 cranes for the project in next week’s column, so limber up your fingers and start folding.
How to make a crane
Remember to keep all of your folds and creases very sharp and accurate.
Step 1: Begin with a square piece of paper, fold in half diagonally and crease, unfold and fold in half diagonally the other way and crease, unfold. You will see an “X” in the square piece of paper.
Step 2: Fold paper in half lengthwise and crease, unfold and fold in half lengthwise the other way and crease, unfold. You will see a cross in the square piece of paper in addition to the “X” formed by the diagonal creases.
Step 3: Hold the paper at the edges of the diagonal fold and gently push the points toward each other. The creases should cause the paper to fold in and form a smaller square.
Step 4: With open sides down, fold the right and left points of the top flap forward the center and crease to form an ice cream cone shape; turn over and repeat on opposite side.
Step 5: Fold the top point down over the two folded corners of the side facing you, crease and unfold.
Step 6: Unfold the two side corners gently and fold the top flap up to form a diamond shape. The folded sides should fold into the center. Crease all the edges and flatten.
Step 7: Turn over and repeat step 6. The piece should now have a diamond on both sides.
Step 8: With open sides pointing down, fold right and left corner points toward center; turn and repeat on other side.
Step 9: Fold top upper flap down over folded bottom points ; turn over and repeat on other side.
Step 10: Open up the sides of the piece and fold each of the bottom points up so that you have two spikes, one on each side of the center point and between the “wings.”
Step 11: Fold one of the spikes down about one-third of the way to form a head and crease. Leave the other spike up to form the tail.
Step 12: Gently pull both spikes toward the outer edge of the piece and pinch firmly into place. Grasp the wings next to the body of the crane and very gently pull out and away until body puffs out and wings are extended to the side.
If you have trouble with the above instructions, check out the instructions shown on the Web sites listed here, or pick up the Sadako book mentioned above.
You can also find instructions in packages of origami paper and in most beginning origami books.
www.sadako.org/foldingcranes.htm
monkey.org/~aidan/origami/crane
www.origami-instructions.com/origami-crane.html
Contact Jonetta Coffin at jrocoffin@aol.com.
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