In this video, I'm going to show you how to fold
a Single Strip Square Curlicue
designed by Assia Brill.
Diagrams can be found in her book
Curlicue: Kinetic Origami
which includes 20 different Curlicue models
so it's not just this one, it's actually very versatile.
This book has opened my eyes
to a new take on origami
which is just about the highest praise I can give for a book
and one I don't give easily.
Her work is different, fun
and simply amazing.
Pictures actually can capture the superb
I'd say kaleidoscopic effect of her curlicues
so I highly recommend you also visit her Flickr page
for multiple videos of different curlicues in action.
Now, I could go on talking about this
for a long time
but we want to get folding right?
So just a quick overview:
This video will be in 3 parts:
1st -- cutting a tapered strip of paper
which we require to fold this model
2nd -- the basic folding sequence
which is really easy, actually
and finally,
2 methods for locking the curlicue
to get the completed model
The first method is a bit easier to learn I think
but the second is extra fun
and once you master it, it's faster and actually
it's just as easy once you've kind of gotten your head around it.
So, onto cutting a strip of paper.
So for this model, you actually don't need a square
or even a rectangle
but you need a tapered strip of paper.
It has a right angle here
so that's 90 degrees
and then you have one side being wider than the other
And depending on the width difference,
you will have a larger or smaller difference
of the layers of the curlicue
because you can see you have these separate layers here.
And I guess in the most extreme case
if the difference is zero so it's a rectangle
then all of these layers would have exactly the same size
But you know, we'll work with one of those tapered strips
because I actually think having
the different sizes of the layers
gives a special effect
that makes this single strip square curlicue
what it is.
So in this video,
I'll be using a strip that has
a length of 35 cm or 13 3/4 in
and one side is 5cm or 2in wide
and the other side is 1 cm or 0.4 in wide
This is not an extremely long strip
but it's definitely long enough to show you the principle
and I just quickly wanted to give you some tips
on how to cut these strips.
And the book actually includes quite a few tips
on how to cut these strips
and also when they're longer, because you know,
for for these 2 models here I use longer strips.
This one was folded from a strip with
a length of 70 cm or 27 1/2 in about,
and one side is 3.5 cm or 1 3/8 in
and the other side is 0.7 cm or 1.4 in
This strip is even longer
twice as long:
140 cm or 55 in
and on one side it's 3 cm or 1.2 in wide
and on the other side it's 0.5 cm or 0.2 in wide.
You might wonder where you get paper that is that long
Actually, wrapping paper is a really good choice
There are nice duo colored wrapping papers out there
and they're usually quite wide
or if you want extremely long strips
you can go along the length of the roll of the paper.
So this one I actually cut along the width
of the wrapping paper
which was exactly 70 cm
which is quite standard here in Germany
and I'm sure that in other countries there's a similar standard width
which is quite nice because, you know,
sometimes you have very large presents to wrap.
Anyway
I noted that you need a right angle here, 90 degrees
so when you cut from a sheet or a roll of paper
you kind of want to establish those 90 degrees again
because you want to fold many curlicues, right?
So essentially what you do is you
in some ways, cut a rectangle
and then you cut that rectangle in half at an angle
to get 2 strips.
So you can see here
this is kind of one of the strips
and that would be the 2nd strip.
So to achieve that easily
we're just going to decide
what's the height here and what's the height here
and then here we're first going to mark
I suppose, the 5 cm or 2 in
and then 1 cm or 0.4 in
and on this side we're first going to mark
0.4 in or 1 cm
and then the 5 cm or 2 in.
And then we can kind of connect those
with a ruler
to draw a line and cut it with scissors
or as you will see me do
actually use a cutting knife.
So, we're first going to measure
and because you want to remove the markings later, I'd advise using a pencil.
So we were saying
we're going to have
5 cm and 1 cm
and on the other side
we're going to have
1 cm and 5 cm
So now if you don't have a cutting knife
then you can connect these lines here
one's the 6 cm, 6 cm
or 2.4 in and 2.4 in
and then that slightly diagonal one too.
And I'm just going to go ahead and cut it right off
with a cutting knife
If you do use a cutting knife and not scissors,
do be really careful, they tend to be extremely sharp
So you know there's always extra caution we should use
be sure that your fingers are well out of the way
and then cut in a stroke
until you feel like you're not giving enough pressure to the ruler anymore
move your hands
and continue cutting
until you reach the edge of the paper.
And then you have
your 1st strip here
there you go
and then I'm just going to cut the 2nd one
connecting the other 2 lines.
Cut and move your hands
cut and move your hands
and cut.
There you go
So now you have a right angle here again
this is the strip I showed in the beginning
and these are the 2 strips
that make that rectangle
See that?
And as you can see
you get 2 identical strips
where you have a right angle
we have 5 cm and 1cm
or 2 in and 0.4 in
So it's actually nice that we have 2 strips
because I already mentioned that
I wanted to show 2 different ways of finishing off the model
but you know, let's first start folding with one.
Let's orient the paper
so that you have the right angle
in the bottom left corner right here
And you know depending on the angle of this
it might be a little harder to tell which it is
so before cutting you might want to mark that corner.
One more additional note perhaps:
if you have the book, note that Assia drew the diagrams
so that you start with the right angle in the top
So looking at it like this
I'm basically flipping over the paper
because I prefer folding away from myself
and I think Assia prefers folding towards herself.
So the main difference that this will have
is the rotation of the curlicue
So if you use Assia's method
of starting with the right angle in the top left corner
then the curlicue will rotate counterclockwise
Can you see that, it's rotating counterclockwise
Now, if you start the other way around
it will rotate clockwise, so
here's an example
where it rotates clockwise.
So you can see, you know,
it's a slight difference but the principle is the same.
For the twist fix method
I show both how to do it
when you rotate clockwise
and counterclockwise
So that, you know, you see both of those flavors.
Anyway, let's get started folding now.
We're going to start by folding that corner up
so that this edge
meets that edge
Very simple
There you go
Now you have a raw edge here and a raw edge here
We're going to fold this edge up
so that it meets that other edge, and
the key in this curlicue folding is
that you work extremely precisely
and you can kind of
move over the paper until it actually touches that edge
You get nice precision
Now we're just going to take this corner
and fold it to the back
We just kind of needed it as a reference
And this is the length of the almost-square of your square curlicue
Now we're going to continue
just with these simple folds of always taking that lower edge
and aligning it with this edge that's perpendicular
So you want to have a nice sharp corner here
so I'm first going to catch that corner
and then I'm going to move over the paper
so that it exactly goes against that edge
so that you get perfect precision
because the more precisely you fold,
the nicer the model looks
Then we're just going to rotate this
Can we see that, I just rotated it down
So again we have that long edge
and we have a perpendicular edge here
with a color change
and again we make a perfect point here
and then we straighten the paper so that it's not too loose
and then again, have it just but against that layer of paper here
It's very simple folding
Just be very precise.  And again, rotate
and get a perfect point
and crease.
And rotate
get a perfect point
and align and crease.
And continue until the end of the strip
So at some point
you will see that when folding over
you don't have enough space anymore
and then you can cut off the excess
So we can simply make a horizontal crease
that goes through the point of that last layer
by aligning this edge
with that one right there
to get a 90 degree angle on there
And this small portion of paper you can cut off.
So I'm just going to use some scissors for that
It's just a very small cut
And there you go
And now let's zoom in
and speed through that folding process again
for the 2nd strip
So here are the 2 curlicues
folded but not locked yet
so you can see
you can basically completely unfold this by simply
pulling the tip here
and the finished curlicue doesn't work like that; it's locked.
And I'll be showing you 2 methods
The 1st I'll call the mountain fold method
and the 2nd the twist fix method.
The twist fix method is
I suppose a little harder to grasp and understand
but it's extremely fun
and you know, the first time I did it
I just went "wow!" and I was amazed and
appreciated Assia's work all over again
So I first want to show the mountain fold method
It's easier to learn
but it takes longer
once you kind of get the hang of the twist fix, it's very quick
And as I said, it's just so fun, and you know,
folding is at least half of origami; it's not just the finished result.
But, let's start with the mountain fold method.
For this we're going to almost completely unfold the curlicue
and if you have many layers, that means a lot of unfolding
So basically, you want to get to the state
where you have
kind of just finished a square
And then rather than folding as before,
you're going to fold underneath.
And then you're going to flip the model over
and then just following the creases you created
you're going to fold underneath
and fold underneath
and fold underneath.  Can you see how
I'm always rotating the model a little
so it's easier for me to go along those folds we already did
You can see we're always kind of going along these mountain folds
because we flipped the model over.
And you just go around
It's very simple, but you know, when you have a long strip
it's going to take a little while
But eventually you'll get there
and then
you have your curlicue done.
Now, there is fewer layers than in the
curlicues I showed you in the beginning
But still, you can already see
that you can do these
nice manipulations
and get nice effects, and also
again, you can here see
how it rotates
clockwise rather than counterclockwise
So now for the twist fix method
As you will probably guess, it's all about twisting the paper
Now we're first going to orient this so that
this final point, points upwards
And then we're going to bring that purple corner here
to the back
basically making a mountain fold here
and kind of in the process a valley fold here
Although you know, it's not a fold, it's just a bend; you're not creasing
you're just bending the paper, just like that
And once you've got that,
you know, you've got that corner now pointing to the bottom
Now you're going to bring this point over
to that point
So you're basically folding it over
having a bend kind of like a valley fold here
And you can do that by
twisting the paper a little -- can you see that?
It's kind of a folding over but it's also twisting the paper
And now you've got your first lock done
Now you're going to take this top corner
and twist it over to the bottom
Now you're going to take this corner
and guess what, you're going to twist it over to this point
So just going to
twist it over
There you go
And now you've got that point --
you can see it's always the one that's kind of
bent in half
and you always bring it over to the one opposite
So you're twisting that over to the top
And once you have the action in place,
it's basically you're
turning the model with this point, clockwise,
and the rest of the model counterclockwise.
So again, you're twisting it over, just like that.
and then you have that corner, you want to bring it to the bottom
and you're twisting it over
And now you can see, it's basically just a twisting motion
so I'm just doing that
and you can go very quickly
I mean, I slowed this down a lot
because I want you to be able to understand it
but you just go on twisting,
you go on twisting
and you go on twisting, and there you go
And now, you have everything locked.
You didn't unfold and fold any creases though, right?
And let's compare this to the model that we fixed with the mountain fold method.
They look exactly the same
they both rotate clockwise
And they work exactly the same
But don't you agree the twist fix method
is just so much more fun?
And to demonstrate how much more quickly it can go
I'm going to show to you
on this multi-layered model
And also, here I will demonstrate
how the twist fix works
when you rotate counterclockwise rather than clockwise
You can see here that the topmost layer
is on the left when the point is pointing upwards
and before, it was on the right
So before, we were twisting clockwise on the top layer
and counterclockwise on the bottom layer
Now with it on the left, we're going to
rotate counterclockwise on the top layers
and clockwise on the lower layers
So it works in principle the same, just that the directions are a little different
So as before, you've got the tip
you're going to bend it down to the other layer
to the opposite corner
and bring this one over to that side
with a twist
So now you can see I'm rotating that counterclockwise on the top
and clockwise on the bottom
And then you've got this next one
counterclockwise on the bottom, clockwise on the top
And the next one
And so on.  Can you see
that I'm really just twisting
and once you get the hang of that
can you see how quick that is
even me like slowing down, actually, I could go faster than this
But you still need to be able to recognize things, right?
So I'm just twisting over
I'm twisting over, always kind of grabbing one layer beneath
so that these don't move
and twisting over
then moving my thumb over to the next one
Again, just fixing all the layers except the top one
And over
And over
And it's a very natural movement I find
You can just twist
until, you know, you've reached the end
And I think it's just such a pleasing procedure
that goes really quickly
you work very precisely, automatically, you're not reversing the folds
it's not laborious, it's just
I don't know, it's just magical, it's just fun
It's fun, and you know, that's what we want, right?
we want to be happy folding
we want to have enjoyment and amazement and there we go, we're done!
And now we've got it locked and now we can twist,
and play with the model
and just all over again have that fun.
Now as you can tell by this video I think,
I'm just super super excited about
the folding and also the finished model
and about playing with it
and you know, it's just like a kaleidoscope because you see all these
different patterns emerge,
or it can kind of unflip again, in a very playful motion
And this is just one model I showed you
And in the book, Curlicue Kinetic Origami
there's 20 different curlicues in there
some from single strips, some from multiple strips
some are squares, some are hexagonal
there's just so many different variations
and I think Assia did a superb job
in just presenting this new area of origami
is what I'd call it.
And the diagrams are very clear
-- just let me zoom out a little --
Just to give you a quick sense, I'm going to show you one of the first pages
Here you can see the style of diagrams, they're hand-drawn
Assia did a beautiful job here
And you know, I love the
hand-drawn feel, and they're very precise too
They're easy to follow
And it's simply a joy to go through this book.
And you know, everything's in color so that it's really, really easy to follow along
And I'm sheerly amazed by this beautiful, beautiful book
I highly recommend it
I'm going to stop here, I have to stop myself just because I'm just
so super, super excited about it
I hope you enjoyed this video
I hope you enjoy these amazing single strip square curlicues
that you can fold by following this video
and you know, if you're hungry for more
which I totally understand
then do get the book, and happy folding!
