Dear Everyone ~
I recently taught a new workshop, Quartet of Origami Boxes.
A trio of the students in the workshop have sent me wonderful
follow-up emails, and I’ve received their permission to share
these with you. And I made a serendipitous discovery
during the workshop … so we have a quartet of happiness!
First, Betsy,
who I think qualifies as an old friend,
as she was in my first bookbinding workshop at
Artist Bookworks … back in 1989!
Well, Betsy went home with her four origami boxes from class,
and decided to make a fifth box. She wrote,
“I used the wrapper from the assortment of note cards
that I’d bought in your shop. You made me very happy today.”
I am in deep bow to Betsy on this one, as the scrunchy
momi paper I wrap my stationery bundles in is not easy to tame.
As you can see from Betsy’s photo,
she succeeded in folding the crinkly paper
... totally crisply.
Then, Hallie.
In class, Hallie mentioned that the origami
box structure reminded her of a Chinese take-out carton.
Guess what she had for dinner? That same evening,
she sent me an email with the subject line “A quartet plus one.”
She wrote, “At dinner, I could not resist unfurling my
Chinese take-out dinner box, the perfect ending to a
perfectly Swoonable day! Will e you the photos in a moment.”
And here is one of her delicious photos.
And Josie, who lives in Michigan.
Josie drives to Chicago from time to time, and
comes into my shop to shop. This was her first workshop,
and she hadn’t made boxes before. Josie was quite captivated
by the origami process, and decided to take home a magnificent
selection of Saint-Armand half sheets, to continue making
more boxes, in a multitude of colours. Josie also bought
Japanese Chiyogami. She sent several photos of her materials
in their new home, and I’m particularly fond of this one,
with her dressmaker’s mannequin eager to see the new arrivals!
She emailed, “My hopes are high for this weekend,
which means getting my Bari Zaki Studio supplies spread out,
lots of touching and feeling and planning for how to use them.
I'm having a friend over later this month to share boxmaking time!”
And Josie's decided to take my online class to make a buttonhole-stitch
book, so she also purchased her papers and tools for that.
As for my serendipitous discovery in class:
While everyone was focused on making their boxes
from the largest to the smallest, I decided to make the
smallest first, to see just how small it would be.
The baby box is about 2 x 2 x 1 …
and holds a roll of washi tape perfectly!
As well as the set of teeny envelopes!
I had calculated the paper sizes so the boxes would nestle,
which they did beautifully. Everyone put one box into the other
and then I wrapped each set with white tissue and yarn,
which is how I wrap everyone’s books or boxes
once they’ve finished a workshop.
In fine fold,
Bari