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Origami with Fabric Scraps

© Marion

Every fabric crafter regularly has to decide whether a piece of fabric leftover from a project is worth keeping or should be thrown away. Just how small must a scrap be before you assign it to the wastebin?

If it's a bit of particularly precious fabric, one that brings back memories of a trip somewhere (as a fabricaholic, if I find myself in a strange town I always keep an eye out for a fabric shop) or the person who gave it to me, I find myself keeping pieces that I know deep down inside me are really too tiny to be useful for much besides a couple of strands of rag hair for a doll or a yet another crazy quilt.

Then I discovered a fabric origami website that has opened up a whole new world - not paper origami, but fabric origami! The concept is simple - treat a scrap of fabric with a stiffener, iron it smooth and then use it as you would a bit of paper to create origami objects. Not only are fabric origami longer lasting than paper creations, but with fabric, if you make a wrong fold, you can iron out your mistake and start again.

This bit of lateral thinking in the use of fabric has led me into the vast world of origami design, for example Origami models and diagrams and Envelope and Letter Folding . So now instead of having a box of scraps, I've a carton of potential origami projects - boxes, animals, decorations...

(January 2001: See also the review of Fantastic Fabric Folding by Rebecca Wat)