1046: Jeannine Mosely’s “Woven Stella Octangula”

Jeannine Mosely is a legend in the modular origami world, and her early morning session was one I hoped to be awake enough to follow:

Jeannine Mosely's "Woven Stella Octangula"

This nightmare of a model has 12 modules (4 colours, 3 sheets each), and the actual module is really simple (based primarily on a 60 degree corrugation through a fan fold on a 1: root 3 sized paper).

Part of the session was devoted to a neato method of cutting a square down to the correct proportions, a small time in folding the module and the balance in construction, which is a bit of a mind-fuck.

Once you “get” the interleaving, it sort of makes sense, but the shape is not stable until the last colour goes in, making construction really fiddly.

Jeannine Mosely's "Woven Stella Octangula"

The resultant model is wonderful, and I know I will fold it again (I might choose nicer colours, and perhaps make it a little bigger). Jeannine’s instructions were clear and she has a good common sense presentation style.

1044: Geisha

I attended the 2021 April OUSA Foldfest – a 25 hour online marathon of folding tutorials, lectures and virtual meet nd greet:

Sipho Mabona's Geisha

One of 2 deciding reasons to attend was the opportunity to be taught a model by Sipho Mabona – his “Geisha”.

At 3am, I awoke, made tea, cut some paper ready for the workshop (international time is cruel), and, thankfully followed alone a complex but beautiful sequence.

By pure coincidence, my paper looked like Sipho’s, and my final model is really close (amazing for a first fold, testament to the sequence and expert tutelage).

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1037: Beth Johnson’s Horse

Madly, I agreed to participate in an international tournament, at the Intermediate level:

Beth Johnson's Horse

Intermediate meant you got a diagram and 72 hours to fold a rendition of it. I decided the “advanced” category was beyond my available time as you only got a CP and presumably relied on the power of prayer.

I gave it a whirl, went for crisp and accurate, but played a little with the flowing style of mane. It was loved by nearly noone who voted – fair enough. Other, less well folded versions (in my opinion) got more “likes” – social media is like that. Useful punch in the face, thanks.

Round 1 of the tournament done … and I am eliminated. Time to focus on more important things.

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1032: Endless Garden

Cruising Fakebook, as one does, I came across a fascinating origami geometric mindf*ck:

Edu Solano Lumreras' "Endless Garden"

Edu Solano Lumbreras kindly shared instructions for his design, having adapted the techniques used in Thoki Yenn’s “Umulus Rectangulum” corners, to make this tesseract like cubic möbius strip.

Comprised of 6 modules, with some exacting pre-creasing that lends itself to template work, you fold bent square tubes with 3 corners – the shortest corner makes the “tab”, the opposite end becomes the “pocket”.

A4 rendering

Folding in a4, the geometry is just as elegant, if exacting.

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1029: Hideo Komatsu’s Horse

Always on the look out for an elegant depiction of a horse, a contact on Insta posted his fold of this model (a model I had not seen before), and I knew I had to try it:

Hideo Komatsu's Horse

There are many stunning origami horses – my favourite 2 of note are David Brill’s (folded from a triangle) and Satoshi Kamiya’s (which I have yet to fold).

Hideo Komatsu's Horse views

This model has the proportions and majesty of a fine racing horse and the fold sequence is a lot of fun – you have to be accurate and exercise restraint throughout to get an elegant form.

Folded from a 40cm square of Tant (a little heavy for this design, but I liked the colour and texture so persisted), I think I have a new favourite – such a beautiful horse, and lovely internal structure also.

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