Anne's Origami Blog

Gross’s “Quickie Rose”

By: Gay Merrill Gross

From: OrigamiUSA 2004 Annual Collection

Why: Michael LaFosse showed me this flower, another great model by Gay Merrill Gross. It’s since been published in the 2004 Annual Collection from OrigamiUSA. It’s not particularly difficult (only requires one easy sink) and results in a really nice flower. There’s a good leaf to go along with it, too.

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LaVin’s “Elephant Doodle”

By: Anne LaVin

From: undiagrammed

Why: Look! I made up a model!

I was sitting around fiddling with some paper, and this is what happened. That’s got to be a first, for me, anyway. Maybe I’ll get around to diagramming it. The only bummer is that the legs don’t have a lot of separation because of the way they’re created.

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Ishibashi Ball (aka Brocade Ball, Japanese Brocade)

Created by: ISHIBASHI Minako

Published in: Oru 8 and Origami - the complete guide to the Art of Paperfolding by Rick Beech, ISBN 0754807827

Why: I just really like this model, and it makes an excellent cat toy. (If used as a cat toy, in order for it to last more than, say, a nanosecond or so, you have to glue the units together!)

The unit is relatively simple, but the way it forms all those nice edges is really kind of elegant; the basic symmetry is a cube, but with all those edges, it’s hard to see, sometimes. I love the way the cube just manages to peek out through the decoration. They make great holiday ornaments, too. I’ve seen tiny ones made into earrings, as well. That might require tweezers…

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Bolt’s “3-D Magic Star”

Published in: British Origami Society Magazine No. 54

Why:

It’s a 3-D version of the Magic Star/Frisbee model by Bob Neale, and it’s great fun. Each piece slides in and out, changing the shape of the hole in the center; I learned it from Scott Cramer, who learned it from Tommy Stevens, who figured it out from the cover of a Korean origami book on-line someplace. It turns out that it was published in BOS Magazine No. 54 ‘way back in 1975.

I don’t have photos of it opening and closing; see the model in the previous blog post for the flat version of what it does when you slide the bits in and out. Pretty cool, no? It’s spectacular when folded from patterned foil paper, actually. Scott had made a whole bunch and had them on display in the local library.

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Neale’s “Magic Star”

By: Robert Neale

Published in:: Origami, Rick Beech, ISBN 0754807827

Why:

This is another model that Scott Cramer taught at our local New Hampshire group meeting. Though I own the book it’s published in, I had never tried folding it before. (Story of my life.) It turns out the model is made from a very simple unit, just 8 of them, and is really easy to assemble. Best of all, it’s two models in one, really, and a great toy to fidget with - there’s a trick! It converts, via sliding, from a star to a ring. The star alone is nice looking; the intermediate stages are also pretty cool, and once it’s in “ring” form, you can toss it like a Frisbee (flying disk toy, for those of you not here in the US; though, I dunno, are Frisbees distributed internationally? Fine question.)

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