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 :)