Handle with care, 2mm tiny crane inside!! Yumi (10 year old)

November 3, 2023 10:10 AM

World Origami Days (every year from Oct 24 through Nov 11). Title from a winner of @peacecraneproject's smallest crane contest. On the other end of the size spectrum, via British Origami, how many people do you need to fold a giant crane? The entries so far for this year's theme: dragon. I like Jo Nakashima's dragon design. WOD archives from 2022. #MyWOD on social media (note that WOD also stands for workout for the day?; third party IG viewer for those not logged into IG).

Why does the celebration start October 24th? Because it's Lillian Oppenheimer's birthday (1898-1992), who is credited with popularizing paper-folding in the US and Britain.

From Origami USA: How to make a Spindle Spinning Top video. Flapping bird and traditional boat templates.

posted by spamandkimchi (9 comments total)

Nice. I'm in the process of folding 1,000 cranes from 1-inch square pieces of paper. I keep the paper, tweezers, and folded cranes in an Altoids tin and make them when I have downtime. It takes about 7 or 8 minutes to fold one. I have 800 something done. I'd be interested in hearing what to do when I'm finished. I was thinking of using sewing needles to pin them in a shadow box like a butterfly collection.
posted by AlSweigart at 10:24 AM on November 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

I herd u liek dna origami so i made origami from your dna origami so you can fold yer folds with the foldings

Nanoscale origami with DNA-wireframe paper
posted by lalochezia at 10:44 AM on November 3, 2023

How many people do you need to fold a giant crane?

They'll Need a Crane.
posted by The Bellman at 10:50 AM on November 3, 2023 [1 favorite]

The first link under the fold is borked, it should probably be to this.
posted by egypturnash at 1:30 PM on November 3, 2023

Really, you just need to fold it the other way. Common error.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:15 PM on November 3, 2023

More seriously, I loved origami as a teen, and I’m still occasionally amazed at what muscle memory can do as my brain struggles to remember next steps. I helped a student group fold 1000 cranes back in the day. That was fun, but a lot of folding.
posted by GenjiandProust at 3:18 PM on November 3, 2023

Thanks for this. I feel like I should origami one of those dragons now.
posted by flamewise at 12:08 PM on November 4, 2023

BTW AlSweigart I dunno whether your 1000 cranes are for a wish, but if they are, you probably want them to perish as that releases their wish powers.
posted by flamewise at 12:11 PM on November 4, 2023

Way back when I worked a horrible call-center job, I used to occupy my hands while talking into the headset by folding sonobe units and legoing them together into ridiculous clusters of globes and tubes that gradually took over my cubicle. Post-it notes are perfect for making them, since they're reliably square (assuming name-brand post-its).

More recently, I learned how to fold a crow from this video (could also be a raven, depending on how fat you make the beak). Now my desk is full of them.

I guess the moral is, origami is great, but if you're the sort of person who hesitates to throw away something you've made, it really accumulates.
posted by rifflesby at 8:04 PM on November 5, 2023