Sep 16, 2008

RUKUFAN ORIGAMI: bashi (ball?)

After having FINALLY learnt how to make one of those things last night, I spent some time this morning to draw up some diagrams on how to make it for those of you who haven't had the fortune of inheriting this particular piece of our heritage. A bashi is a woven cube from palm fronds that was often used as a ball. So here goes!

Basically you need to two leaves, long and healthy and without any insect holes (believe me when I raped the palm tree last night I got my fair share of "unsuitable" ones)

Next you'll need to cut it into nice long (anything longer than a foot works I guess) strip. Leave the rib (iloshi) intact when you do this. Ok so now you got two nice long strips of "fan" (kekek) to play with. Now you need to take out the iloshi while leaving a small bit of it - roughly the same as the width of a half leaf- (from the side where the iloshi is narrower) holding the two segments of the leaf together, so you should have something like this.



Got it? Great! now for the next step. Take one of these, and pull one of it's legs between those of the other one. Lay them on each other at right angles. Confused? Check the diagram :p


Alright now to get started with the weaving. It's easier if you have the "legs" facing away from you. I'll name each one (there are four right?) as a,b,c and d (starting from the left). Ok now you need to pull "a under b", and "d over c". Remember "a under b" and "d over c". Like so



notice how the "d" was on the underside and "a" on the top side before you began. Ok now after the "a under b" and "d over c" move, you cross a and d in a "a over d" move. It might be a little handful at first buy you'll get the hang of it. the "a over d" move is like so -


Are we having fun yet? The above move will leave you with something looking like this




NOW TIGHTEN!!! pull it hard you bitches!!! (whoa hey not so much!) alright now that completes one weave. It's going to try and bend (that's supposed to happn so let it happen) Congratulations! Now you'll once again have four legs facing away from you. Rename (a-d) from the left again, and start over from the "a under b" move, and then when you reach this point again, start over again..over...and over...and over.. and OOOOOVVEERRRRRRRRRR... until you're almost out of "leg", (or you the thing is as big as you want. You need four weaves minumum...I think. Let's play on the safe side and make it a five weave minimum) at which point it's now time for you to "tuck in".

You do this by pulling the legs under the weave. I couldn't draw this (bah!), so I took a picture and drew arrows on it ;)



Pull that through,TIGHTEN, repeat it for all the legs for a couple of times and cut off the rest. (It would probably we wise to leave your own legs intact)

Congratulations! You are now a proud Maldivian :)

Happy weaving. Post pictures if you make it. Now then, does anybody know how to make those pretty little bird things? Goddamnit I should've payed more attention as a kid huh? Maybe I would've learned something other than to make a "Gadi"!

Seriously though if any of you do know how to make one, do post. OR teach me how to make one so I'll post it :p

Sharing is caring people sharing is caring.

Now check out this fish I made. Ok so it's not the prettiest thing but hey I'm no "pro"

1 Comments:

Anonymous said...

gadha kaley. post more types of origmi.

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