Paper, Precision and Practice
As characters in Sesame Street would say, today’s post is brought to you by the letter P
For quite some time I’ve been intrigued by Chinese Thread Books zhen xian bao. They pop up now and again in varied formats, some more complex than others. I’d left the idea at the back of my mind but always thought that one day, I’d have a go. That day came this week, when I found myself tired of looking at a screen and remembered a fresh pack of origami paper on my worktable; an impulse addition to a Christmas order from Sostrene Grene. I downloaded a set of basic instructions and thought I’d begin with a simple design.
Easy peasy!
Or was it? When I looked closely, it wasn’t at all neat or precise. One of the delights of origami is the precision and I wasn’t really happy with the way this had come together. I put it on one side and determined to do better next time.
One of my failings is a belief that I can do everything perfectly, first time! When faced with the reality - that I can’t - determination sets in and I can’t just leave it there. It becomes a little battle, me vs a sheet of paper and yes, you know I have to win.
But it soon became clear that I wasn’t going to win this time, not with this paper at least.
Because this paper isn’t square! There was no way I was going to achieve a perfect fold if I was beginning with a less than accurately cut square. I returned to my box of origami paper (yes, of course I have a stash🫢) and found some sheets I’d bought in Japan. I felt confident that would be accurate.
It was indeed! The folds came together and in spite of how it looks in the photo, believe me that when pressed flat, those two points meet up precisely with the edges, just as they are supposed to do. The result was increased confidence. I can do this, given the right materials!
The Japanese washi paper had been rather thicker than the Sostrene Grene product and getting a crisp fold was tricky. I preferred the thinner, crisper paper for this and so took a few sheets and trimmed them to be exactly square before trying again.
On closer inspection, though, I still wasn’t happy with some of those folds. What was I missing?
Practice, of course. And decent paper, unless I was going to trim them to size?
Before cutting 1mm from each of ninety-odd sheets left in the paper pad from my Christmas order, I thought I’d have a closer look at my stash of Japanese paper. As I sifted through the box of paper packs and some loose sheets, I began to sound like a bear from the Goldilocks story.
Firstly, those odd sheets of washi paper that worked fairly well. Not enough of them if I was to go on to include them in a thread book, however small. In fact, I don’t think there were two sheets the same.
This pack was complete and would surely contain enough, but it was a kind of “kit” to fold that ball on the picture. Another one from my “to do” list.
Two more packs, one of which is for folding animals, so it’s printed with facial features already. The paper in the other pack was a little small, I thought, 3” square.
And these 2” squares were way too small for the purpose!
At last, I found a pad with the Midori brand, who make excellent quality paper. Surely this would be great.
Hmm, not only did I think the design of these papers wouldn’t really work for those little folded pockets, the paper was printed on just one side and was quite thin and transparent too.
It was almost the last pack of paper in the box that looked most promising in terms of size, quality and design. I had clearly used some for a different project already and had cut it into quarters, but thankfully I had enough left for a few samples.
I think the word for this weekend is most certainly Practice
