Origami Butterflies

Mr. Rududu was recently all aflutter with the designs in Origami Butterflies by Michael G. LaFosse et al. from Tuttle Publishing. It came with paper with a different color on each side. Most origami paper is white on the reverse and that wouldn't work so well for making colorful butterflies such as this swallowtail.

Soon there was a cloud of paper butterflies in our house, of many species.

Awww! It's a rat.

Mr. Rududu just folded a really cute rat. OK, I will admit that even though I used to have a pet white rat, I don't think of rats as generally attractive. But this model, designed by the great French origami artist, Eric Joisel has tons of cute factor.

Even minor changes can change the rat's personality. Here I pressed on the rat's head to make him look meaner by changing the angle of the forehead by a very small amount.

I think that this rat's winsome appearance reflects Mr. Rududu's personality.

Monsieur Joisel died at the age of 53 of lung cancer. Tributes included a lengthy obituary in the New York Times which included instructions for folding his rat and it's interesting to see the many versions that people have folded. Most of his models were far more complex. Joisel's pieces were exhibited at the Louvre and he was featured in the 2009 documentary Between the Folds. Anyone with any interest in origami—or if you want to completely change your idea of what origami is—should visit his web site.
The knitty-gritty: This model was wet folded with a paper called Elephant Hide. 

Holy koi!

 There are actually quite a few people in Wisconsin that say "Holy cow!" as an exclamation of surprise and wonder. It's one tick up from wow. I'm so impressed by Mr. Rududu's recent origami koi that I'm thinking of changing the expression to "Holy koi!" The model is published in Dollar Origami by Won Park. Folding the model with a dollar bills results in really wonderful eyes.
   This is by no means a model for beginning folders. To practice until he could find some really crisp new bills, Mr. Rududu cut some of his current favorite paper, Elephant Hide, to the same proportions. (He ordered big sheets of Elephant Hide from Paper Jade.) We decided that it would be fun to make some koi with orange spots, so I used some acrylic paint to add orange splotches on both sides before the paper was folded. Mr. Rududu said that in spite of vigorous manipulation, the paint did not flake or chip. I think it's a good alternative to dollar bills.

I think they are beautiful. They also go well with my latest temari.

 The nitty-gritty: The pattern for the temari can be found in Japanese Temari by Barbara B. Seuss. I chose my own colors.

Holiday spheres

  As we are finally moving into cold weather and the holiday season, it affects my color choices and projects. I'm especially drawn to icy blues as on this 16 division chrysanthemum stitch.

 The ball shown below has the same base color in sewing threads as some of the number 5 perle cotton thread, causing new shapes to seem to appear by magic.

Blues can be kept warm with yellow.

  I made this cute Santa temari from a pattern from Barb Suess that I bought from her Etsy store.

The pattern is easy to follow and it aimed at newbies. One doesn't even need to divide the ball to make this. Even so, it had some useful techniques new to me such as the bullion stitch for the beard. The other side of the ball has snowflakes stitched on it. I had some fuzzy white thread that was perfect for that. You can see one to the right of Santa's head.
  Meanwhile, Mr. Rududu has gotten into the spherical mode with a module origami designed by Toshikazu Kawasaki. It was featured in the last issue of The Paper, the magazine of Origami USA.

Apparently it is quite challenging to get 30 modules together into a sphere without them falling apart at some point. I even heard brief mutterings about glue but I kept him under careful surveillance and know he made them the morally correct origami way: no scissors, no glue. There were a lot of tiny clothespins involved at one point. Once they are assembled, they are quite strong although picking them up from the top is discouraged. (I think I almost gave Mr. Rududu heart failure when I did that. The ball survived, fortunately.) I think they look really festive perched on some old wine glasses, some of whom belonged to my grandmother.
  The nitty-gritty: The first three temari in this post are from patterns in Japanese Temari; A Colorful Spin on an Ancient Craft by Barbara B. Suess.

A crowd of totoros

After seeing the brilliant Miyazki animation My Neighbor Totoro, I felt a need to make some forest spirits of my own. This holiday season I made some more to send to two very special little girls, along with a copy of the DVD. Before they go off on their big adventure, I took a group photo of them with our resident totoros.

Notes for how to make a totoro are on my Ravelry project page.

Meanwhile, Mr. Rududu has been busy making origami totoros. The model he used by designed by Robin Glynn. Here are some totoros who seem to be waiting for the cat bus.We believe the white one is about to become invisible.