Even the most skilled and adventurous crafters have projects that test their mettle.
Our personal skill level probably falls in the average to slightly above range, and we aren’t afraid to tackle just about any craft that comes along, but we must confess that there is one art form that has always made us cringe: origami.
It’s hard to admit, but true. We find this popular paper folding process very intimidating, especially when we see little children whip out a perfect carp or crane in a few stress-free minutes.
This week and next, in the interest of personal growth, we’ve decided to face our fear of folding, and venture into the realm of origami.
One reason why origami can be daunting is that the instructions are generally hard to follow – at least we’ve found that to be the case – so we began our new adventure by looking for a good book or two.
We found several that met our needs: “Complete Origami” by Eric Kenneway (St. Martin’s Griffin, paperback, $19.95), “Sticky Note Origami” by David Mitchell (Collins &Brown, paperback, $7.95), “Easy Origami” by John Montroll (Dover Publications, paperback, $3.95) and “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes” by Eleanor Coerr (Puffin Books, paperback, $3.99).
We’ll focus on the first three this week, with more about Sadako (a person, not a technique) in next week’s column.
“Easy Origami” and “Sticky Note Origami” are great books for easing into the art of paper folding with a minimum of trauma. Most of the projects involve simple and few folds, and the instructions in both books are pretty clear.
“Complete Origami” is a bit more advanced, but it’s a comprehensive look at origami basics, contains photos and diagrams for a variety of projects, and tosses a pinch of origami history and lore into the mix.
We made a kusudama, or flower ball, using instructions found in “Complete Origami.”
We had planned to provide step-by-step instructions for the flower ball in this column, but after doing quite a bit of online research we found that this particular kusudama is not one of the designs for which free instructions are available.
By doing a search on “kusudama,” however, you can find a number of designs with online instructions, as well as kits that include all you need to make a flower ball at reasonable prices.
As you can see from the finished project, we were able to master the individual flower components of the ball after a few tries. We’d put the skill level for the flowers at intermediate, as the folds are simple and few, but the final step gets a bit tricky.
You’ll get plenty of practice with the flower process as the ball takes 36 individual components, which seems to be about the same for the other designs we found online.
What we’ve learned…
Our excursion into the world of origami has given us some tips to pass along to our readers.
Purchase a good book. In the past, we’ve tried following instructions in kits and those in the packages of origami paper sold in craft stores, but we found them so hard to follow that we were rarely successful.
Look through the book before buying, checking for descriptions of basic folds and making sure that the instructions are clear and make sense to you.
Find someone to demonstrate a few origami projects (or a video). It’s always easier to see a technique in progress than to follow written instructions.
Start out by practicing with something very simple. Some projects, such as a carp (which can be found in most basic books), have only a few folds, none of which are complicated.
Make your folds very sharp and accurate. This is probably the most important thing to remember when attempting origami. Use your fingernail, a paper folder (sold in craft stores) or even a smooth-bladed butter knife to flatten the crease.
After making the initial fold, open it up and fold it back on itself so that the crease is flexible. This makes the paper more pliable and will actually get the folds to do some of the work for you. We found this to be true during the final steps of making the kusudama flower: the folds kind of fell into place by themselves once we got the hang of it.
Use light- to medium-weight paper when learning and practicing. Heavier paper is hard to work with and hard on the fingers. We found that packaged origami papers with a little bit of a textured surface worked best for our first practice endeavors.
Papers with one foil and one paper side worked very well for the flower ball, because the foil took the folds and creases well but the paper provided enough body for the project to fall into place during the process and to hold its shape.
Avoid pure foil until you are at least an intermediate-level origamist. Pure foil takes the initial folds well, but it’s very difficult to fold creases in reverse or to have the folds and creases work for you. The foil also tears quite easily when folded and unfolded, as is required in many origami projects.
Contact Jonetta Coffin at jrocoffin@aol.com
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