block folding: mini pineapple

Also known as chinese modular origami or 3D origami. Block folding is actually one of the japanese designations. Actually since this is another of the “I’m still alive posts”, I won’t post that much information…

This is a minipineapple. Not that you can tell from the colours… These units were meant for a swan – yes, a white and pink swan. I admit, pink is one of my favourite colours! (: Anyway with almost all units folded I then saw the mini pineapple and went for it; even in these colours. This is my 3rd try in block folding and the first successful one. The other are still in unit stage, somewhere.
Due to the strange colouring it’s nicknamed “hibrid pineapple”; it’s an hibrid between a pineapple and a milk and strawberry shake. (: It has 170 total units! Base: 14units; “lines” 1~10: 13units/each; in lines 3, 5 and 7 there are pink units that should be dark orange or brown. The overall units should be yellow and the two top “lines” (2×13 units) should be dark green or a brownish green – that’s “lines” 9 & 10. Anyway, it’s cute! When the proper coloured version is finished I’ll also upload the diagram. I’ll also refer to the proper japanese and chinese names of this type of origami.

lotus flowers (:

Howdy (;
So, against all odds I’m alive! Not that anyone would tell by looking at the blog. Sorry… I’m also quite well (; since I recently returned from a trip to Madrid and Barcelona. That felt gooood (: but since all good things come to an end (don’t worry, bad things also come to an end!) I’ve had to return and when freshly arrived I was told that my class, me included obviously, had a work to be due two days from then. That was yesterday. It went kind of well so now I have even more work to do and I’m happy, hyper and want to get things done quickly so I can have more folding time. Final years sure are tough for some… A friend of mine in a different class just goes to the beach, gets a nice tan, parties and so on and me? I’m surrounded of work by all sides, at all times. Yes, I just kicked the mountain of stuff to do when I went to Madrid and Barcelona. Once in a while it feels great to do so ((:
Onto origami: before I went a friend asked me to do some giant lotus flowers. And I did some 50 to 60 of them. The smaller had a diameter of 12cm/ 4.7in the medium 22cm/ 8.7in and the bigger ones (from two glued sheets of kraft paper) were almost 35cm/ 13.8in. That’s giant for me… I’m also folding some sakuradama and sonobe for, hmn…, 3 months or so… You’ll see it some time.

Here are some images of that… The lotus, medium and all of them, as well as one of the shop’s windows with them. If you look closely you’ll notice all the mistakes… Many people tell me I fold quite nicely and all that so look at my human side (;
Hopefully, I’ll see you soon!

A hint of what’s coming here (:

As I finally ended my first exam period in university, got a job for some money and will start my second exam period before a new school year arises (and had a two weeks vacation too ^^) here I am showing some kusudamas! I have to say that since I passed the most important subject of the year I’m on my last year… I’m really a soon to be architect… (: I am really happy, I’m super boosted for my incoming exams! And I need that boost because it’s so boring to study for exams… So just for you that keep visiting the blog/ site a preview of these babies:

Hope you like it. These are two versions; there are more folded, more in line for folding and two diagrams in a almost done and reviewing status for your viewing and folding pleasure. Yes, they were requested and popular. Keep “suffering” since the evil me will say no more. I’ve just noticed that I’m quite formal while writting… On that note: see you soon! (;
/Yes, the images are different since my laptop is chatting and giving a hard time to the technical support, they’ve asked permission for a format… Good thing I’ve backed up every little file before. So I’m on my old laptop whose monitor arose from the dead in linux: ubuntu. I’m using Gimp so the colours are bound to be different…. Just for the curious and really attentive ones out there. /

sorry, please do wait a bit longer!

I am truly sorry for having the site without news for so long… But I’m going through an exam phase so bear with it for some more time. I really want, and need!, vacation time: going to the beach, doing nothing, doing origami, no tension from university… Resuming: heaven for a month! (:
See you then! (;

news!

Once upon a morning I was browsing on the internet… I suddenly found a blog so wonderful that I thought I should share it with e*ve*ry*o*ne around me! Please do visit Atelier Puupuu… I was so happy that I almost forgot about publishing my post, the one previous to this one. In the bliss I also forgot to post in the blog; of course I soon overcome that and left my rumblings there. For the distracted ones: more than 200 comments with an url/ link to blog or similar with origami content and Puupuu will share the diagram. But even without that it’s worth seeing. The main site, too!
Are you happy? Are you, are you?
I am… And remember, you are what you think! Happy (origami) thoughts! (:

Some boxes…

I haven’t fold that much lately… But let me show you that I’m still living and folding!

These are boxes by FUSE Tomoko (: Nice, ain’t they…? (that’s a rhetorical question by the way…) Well, there’s one that I’ve made without a diagram, on the second photo, the box on the left. But I think Fuse has a box like that, or prettier… I might have rearranged the folding sequence but that’s a Fuse box, no doubt! (;
edit: due to some strange thing the second photo wasn’t showing… Now it is…

kusudama: nishiki

After some hiatus time due to my exams (and they went the right way! Yay!) I humbly present you what is probably “widely” known as Japanese Brocade. The author of this kusudama is ISHIBASHI Minako; all I know is that the kusudama was originally diagrammed or at least presented in NOA Magazine #143 (1987). The unit is terribly simple to do and by adding an extra crease you can jump from the cube, 6 units, to the 12 and 30 units kusudama (: The kusudama’s name in japanese is にしき/ nishiki. If anyone can enlighten me about the kanji for the name of the author I’d much appreciate it! (; Thank you, Sam, by sharing: 石橋美奈子 is how ISHIBAKO Minako is written in japanese.

I first tried and done the cube then did the 12 units and finally the 30 units. The first 12 units’ kusudama was just to test how it would look but even though I like the result. All are very addicting to do. As in many kusudama I recommend to use some glue in the 30 units… I couldn’t assemble mine without glue but perhaps I’m just clumsy. These units are made from square paper; I used kraft paper for the golden cube and wrapping paper for the flowery cube. The 12 units kusudama were made with regular 80g/m2 blue and pink paper and the other with pinkish wrapping paper; as for the 30 units kusudama they were made with two types of wrapping paper. Since I disliked the first, I assembled it too fast and it ended up not so neat looking, I did another version. Smaller, a bit too small but I liked it (:
I’ll try and update this post with paper types and kusudama measures very soon! I also have some more folded things to show. And even though I remain silent I’m also considering on showing diagrams for some popular folded and asked models in here.

kusudama: kusabi a (i)

What a surprise! Another kusudama by FUSE! I bet none of you saw that coming… I have only done the cube and octahedral base shapes. The dodecahedral will come soon :)

Since I haven’t done the 30, or 60 in this case, unit kusudama these were assembled without glue. Just a bit challenging assembly for the 12 unit kusudama. However as long as you don’t use very big units it’s perfectly assembled without glue. These were made by 6×12cm /2.4×4.7″ coloured paper, the normal colour paper of 80 grams per square meter. The 30 units kusudama will be a little big with these paper sizes but by using 80g/m2 paper any smaller size will be very hard to assemble.

kusudama: curl 1 (i)

Once again a kusudama from Flower Globe, 花まり, by 布施知子/ FUSE Tomoko. This one is named カール１/ Curl 1. It’s not the first “curled” kusudama of the book but receives the name as such. As the one in the previous post this one was done a looong time ago…

As most, every?, kusudamas in the book it’s a double sonobe; actually sonobe isn’t quite the correct expression. After all a sonobe is from a square paper and even though there are obvious similarities in the folding and assembling process there are are different in many ways! Paper size, number of pieces per unit and of course the numerous arrangements :)
I used double faced coloured paper of 8×4 cm/ 3.1×1.6″ and the same size of sketch paper. Or draft paper; I never know which name to call it: the strong yet thin paper slightly transparent and whitish that you sketch on at some part of your school life… The sketch paper doesn’t hold that well the curls but it doesn’t hold it that bad either… If I find a better substitute I’ll definitively use it. This kusudama is also nice before curling: it has a totally different feeling to it.

kusudama: diamond shape pacchi (i)

Remember me? And remember these kusudamas? I do! :)
They are by 布施知子 /FUSE Tomoko and I had to post them decently before doing the washi version. The smaller has 12 double units and the bigger 30. These sonobe-like units are made from 1:2 paper and each finished unit is made up of a base unit and a face unit. In these particular kusudamas the base is the base colour unit and the face unit, the diamond shape unit.

These units were made by colourful 8×4 cm /3.1×1.6″ paper of 70g/m2. The smaller one can be made without glue but on the bigger one I used a bit of glue. It’s hell to assemble without glue however I believe it is possible.
A note on the name: I made these by the original/ japanese book so even though I know there is a english version of the book I do not know the name. The kusudama is named ひし形パッチ; it means something like diamond shape pouch or patch. I have no clue whatsoever of what パッチ /pacchi is intended to mean. Really no idea! You can find them at Flower Globe, 花まり. [edit: Sam, as you can see in the comment bellow, stated that this kusudama is named rhombic patches in english!]

Another note: ultimato do papel is finally somehow active/ online. It’s basically a sister blog/ site of paper unlimited also maintained by me with these contents in portuguese. It’s going to be a slow ride but it has finally started :)