Literary Origami – Book Folding 202 A Paw Print

The following is my attempt to further explain Book Folding. I say attempt, because writing instructions is actually quite difficult. I have a new found appreciation for people who write manuals…

Paw Print

The Basics of Book Folding are covered in this post: Book Folding 101. Here is a video that will help you visualize what I explained in that post and what I am explaining below: DIY Marta. Though Marta isn’t the greatest at making videos, she is a big help in understanding what the process is. (I don’t do everything just like she does – but close enough.)

Moving on. In Book Folding 202, I’ll tell you how you use a printed Paw Print design. (If you have never folded a book before, use a practice book to test to see if you are on the right track…

1. Here is the pattern for the the Paw Print. If you right click on the image you can download it. Save it as a .jpg file and print it full size on an 8.5X11 sheet of paper. This should give you a paw print that is about 4 inches high.

2. If you use the pattern as printed, you will need a book that is  about 8 inches high and has at least 200 numbered pages, which gives you 100 leaves of paper. (1 sheet or leaf of paper has two numbered pages.)

3. Each line on the pattern represents one leaf of the book (two numbered pages) – but only where there is one element, like the left and right toes where there isn’t a second element (the foot pad) below it.

4. Where there are two elements (the toe and the foot pad), you will use two leaves per line on the pattern.

So, although this paw print pattern looks like it only needs 60 leaves, you are actually going to need a book with at least 99 leaves (200 pages). The top element is always folded on one leaf, the bottom element is folded on the next leaf.

Fold Line at the top of the pattern. Elements of the pattern: four toes and the foot pad.

5. Once you decide how the paw print will be positioned on the page (lets say the top of the paw is 2 inches down from the top of the book), then you will fold the paper pattern on a fold line that is 2 inches above the top of the paw print (see ‘Fold Line’ above). You will align this fold line with the top of each leaf of the book.

In the photo below, you can see how the pattern was folded on the fold line. The folded over piece of the pattern creates a ledge that makes it easy to align the pattern on every page.

 

6. The photo above shows the pattern if you were at about the half way point of folding. You can see that the toe and the foot pad are both shown on a single line of the pattern.

7. The toe element will be made with two folds on one leaf – from points #1 and #2. The foot pad will be folded on the next leaf from points #3 and #4. (The top element is always folded first.)

8. You can either make the folds directly from the pattern, or you can make pencil marks on each leaf, remove the pattern, then fold. Either method works. Put a tick mark on the pattern to show what you have finished folding or marking.

9. Folding always starts at the front of the book, but there will probably be some unfolded pages at the beginning and end of the book. So, to find the first leaf you will need to:
a. find the middle of the book.
b. take the number of leaves that you need (99), divided by 2 which gives you 50 leaves. Count back 50 leaves from the middle of the book to the front of the book. That will give you your starting point.

Clear as mud?

Mind and Mental Health Quotations

The Quippery

Some of the following quotations will offend someone. Some will make someone smile.
As Jimmy Buffett says: “If we couldn’t laugh, we would all go insane.”

A neurotic is a man who builds a castle in the air. A psychotic is the man who lives in it. A psychiatrist is the man who collects the rent.
– Jerome Lawrence –

As you look at history, it’s apparent that human behaviour is much easier to predict than the weather.
– Michael Levine, Lessons at the Halfway Point –

Before you diagnose yourself with depression or low self-esteem, just make sure you are not, in fact, just surrounded by assholes.
– William Gibson –

Depression is merely anger without enthusiasm.
– Author Unknown –

Freud: If it’s not one thing, it’s your mother.
– Robin Williams –

Gettin’ up a lynch party is not group therapy.
– Gladiola Montana, Never Ask a Man the Size of His Spread –

Have you ever just looked at someone and knew the wheel was turning but the hamster was dead?
– Author Unknown –

I live in my own little world. But it’s OK. They know me here.
– Author Unknown –

I may rise, but I refuse to shine.
– Author Unknown –

Instead of a sign that says ‘Do Not Disturb;’ I need one that says, ‘Already disturbed, proceed with caution.’
– aunty acid –

In a perfect world, everyone would have sufficient insight to know when their engines needed a tune-up. In our world, some cars need to be towed in.
– Jonathan Kellerman –

Insanity is hereditary. You get it from your kids.
– Badge, Brussels, 1984 –

It is hard to fight an enemy who has outposts in your head.
– Sally Kempton –

It’s not easy to stay sane in a world which offers such a wonderful choice of madnesses.
– Ashleigh Brilliant –

I want to show that the dividing lines between sanity and mental illness have been drawn in the wrong place.
– Anthony Storr –

I was popular once, but my therapist took all my imaginary friends away.
– Author Unknown –

Neurotic: A person who has discovered the secret of perpetual emotion.
– Dan Bennett, Readers Digest, April 1957 –

One out of four people in this country is mentally imbalanced. Think of your three closest friends – and if they seem okay, then you’re the one.
– Ann Landers –

One of the greatest mental freedoms is truly not caring what anyone else thinks of you.
– Author Unknown –

Pointing to his head: “My committee wakes up about an hour and a half before I do.”
– John Larroquette –

Richard, in describing to his aunt in Halifax what Down Syndrome meant, said that it would probably mean Sam wouldn’t be the Prime Minister of Canada but could possibly be a cabinet minister in New Brunswick.
– Wendy Lil –

Sanity is maintained only by healthy and regular promenades around it’s border.
– Davidson & Rugge –

Some doctors say that cheerful people resist disease better than grumpy ones. The surly bird catches the germ.
– Leadershop, Vol F No 7C –

Sometimes the mind, for reasons we don’t understand, goes to the store for a quart of milk.
– Joel, Northern Exposure –

Sometimes when you look in his eyes you get the feeling that someone else is driving.
– David Letterman –

The human brain is like a freight car – guaranteed to have a certain capacity, but often running empty.
– Farmers Almanac, 1997 Volume 180 –

There are some who say the entire North American continent is formed on a decided tilt, resulting in all the nuts rolling to the West. We have never denied this.
– Anne Cameron –

There is no standard normal. Normal is subjective. There are seven billion versions of normal on this planet.
― Matt Haig, Reasons to Stay Alive –

Though confined to the mental hospital most of the time – which he appeared to accept as just another curious event in his troubled life – he wrote Theo as he started painting again.
– David Douglas Duncan, Sunflowers for Van Gogh –

To live frugally and decently…to live sanely in a troubled world.
– Scott Nearing –

Trekkie…addicts felt they were boldly going where few had gone before but researchers feared many took Captain Kirk’s instruction of “Beam Me Up, Scotty” too literally and suggested they were on a different planet.
– Reuters Ltd London –

When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.
– Mark Twain –

Woman to psychiatrist: “If my life were a movie, this is about the time I’d go to the snack bar.”
– Carrie Snow –

“You seem to be reacting to your boyfriend as if he were your father,” your shrink may say stonily (unless she is a strict Freudian, in which case she’ll shut up and wait until you think of it yourself, a process that usually takes ten years. This is why strict Freudians have such lovely summer houses.)
– Cynthia Heimel –

Your mind’s been wandering for years. Maybe it’s time the rest of you went with it.
– Bucar’s RV Ad –

Ghostly Paw Print

if you have been visiting.  this blog for a while, you will know that my name is gHosT (the dog).  i am the blog owners grand-dog.  it has been a while.   since I told you one of my stories.

you might remember that I sometimes have a small problem.  with authority.  i’ve had a few slight transgressions.  in the past.

on the whole i’m fairly well behaved now.   when I am at my own house.   if company doesn’t come to visit.   and I’m dog tired from a long walk.

when I go to the Grandma’s house.   well, let’s just say it will be a long time before they let me walk off leash again.   grandma lives in the country.   in a forest.   with so many interesting smells.   and wild animal trails to follow.   the last time I was there.   i just had to investigate one of these trails.   i was half way across the farmer’s field.   before it occurred to me.   that I was an unaccompanied minor dog.   someone was calling my name.   and they weren’t sounding all that pleasant.

the reason I’m here today.   is that the grandma dog is into this craft she calls ‘literary origami’.   it is really just book page folding.   if grandma gave me the book.   i could alter it in far more interesting ways.   than she does.   i would call it a ‘literary lunch’.   i’m sure a book would be good.   for many minutes of mutilation.   before i finally just ate it.

grandma folded a book for my family.   it is a dog’s paw print.   sort of.   that’s all I’m going to say.   except it doesn’t look much like my paw print.   at least I don’t think it does.   but as you can see from the photo above.    i see my feet from the top.   i don’t spend much time.   looking at the underside of my paw.   one thing I’m sure of though.   my paw isn’t wide like that.   it just isn’t.

i didn’t tell grandma that though.   i’ve learned that you don’t mess with Grandma.   you should have been there to hear.   the scolding I got after I finally returned.   from the trek across the farmer’s field.   you’d think she would have praised me.   for finally coming back…

anyway, here’s Grandmas folded book paw print.   she will tell you how to make it in her next post in a few days.   if you want to read more about me, click on the tag below.   with my name in it.   gHosT.

the grandma usually ends her posts by asking you a question.   i’m going to do that too.   maybe you can give me some advice.

if I should ever come across an unguarded book.   should I start with the front.   and digest it that way.   or should I start at the back.   and eat the ending first?

 

 

Crochet Scrumble – What Does Enough Look Like?

The Car Guy retired permanently a few years ago. He thought we’d have enough money and he knew his body and brain were no longer interested in the work routine.  I sort of retired when he did, though my career as a stay-at-home domestic ‘manager’, wasn’t one I could just walk away from. (Well, I could ‘walk away’, but that would probably mean I was either dead, or The Car Guy had decided to replace me with a younger ‘manager’…)

I used to have some ‘staff’, but they left home many years ago – so I turned to The Car Guy. Turns out he was willing to take on the evening sustenance routine and culinary procurement duties – but he balked at any task that involved removal of foreign substances from hard and soft surfaces. His foodie help was great, but it still left me many hours and tasks short of a leisurely retirement.

That led me to ask and answer my own Retirement Question – what does Enough look like? What is the intersect between dirty enough and clean enough? Enough stuff or too much stuff? Enough or not enough exercise? Enough or too much news? Enough or not enough…

I don’t have all the answers yet, but regular rounds of rightsizing – belongings, tasks, routines, etc  – has given me the mental energy to carve out more free time and be more creative.

Which leads me to a new craft I started in November. Scrumbles  (Freeform Crochet). Apparently Scrumble is the word that describes a small crochet ‘patch’. When the patches are all joined together, they are called… I don’t know, maybe Many Scrumbles?

This was my first Scrumble. I started this one on the car trip we took last fall from Alberta to Arizona. Three days of sitting in a car, in the silence that comes when the other person in the car is not a talker… I call it “Snails lost in a Flower Garden”…

Going on a trip. Need about 4 skeins of yarn. I’ve packed 152 just to be safe.
– thecrochetcafe –

Ta da! Crocheting is a bit like being a magician… you mumble to yourself and waggle a stick around and no one else has a clue how you did it!
– crochetnow uk –

This Scrumble took exactly  one ball of yarn. It was one of those yarns that changes colour every few yards or so. I wonder how they dye it so it turns out like that. I call it “Snails and Pacman with Octopus Tentacles”.

This is where the enough aspect comes in. It is hard to know when the Scrumble is done because there is no pattern. You just make stuff up as you go along and unless you run out of wool, like I did on this Scrumble, it is hard to know when it is finished.

Marry the one who gives you the same feeling you have when you enter the yarn store.
– hooked –

I should learn to crochet something I’ll actually use… like a martini!
– Maxine.com –

This is my third Scrumble. I call it “Denizens of the Coral Reef”.  I knew it was done when I found a new ball of yarn that I liked a lot and it didn’t fit with the colours of this Scrumble. A quick finish to this Scrumble and I moved on to the next.

Yes I’m Bilingual – I speak fluent Crochet! Ch6, DTRC in base of ch 6, SC in next cluster. Repeat from * around, join with sl st to first st.
– Author Unknown –

Crocheter’s Hourly Rate:
$20/hr minimum
$30/hr if it requires black yarn
$40/hr if you require it by tomorrow
$80/hr if there is no pattern
$90/hr if your example photo was knitted.
– Author Unknown –

What Say You – Have you asked, and answered, your questions of “What does enough look like”?

Stephen Fry Quotations

An original idea. That can’t be too hard. The library must be full of them.

How can I tell you what I think until I’ve heard what I’m going to say?

I don’t need you to remind me of my age. I have a bladder to do that for me.

If ignorance is bliss, why aren’t there more happy people in the world?

It is the useless things that make life worth living and that make life dangerous too: wine, love, art, beauty. Without them life is safe, but not worth bothering with.

I think animal testing is cruel. They get all nervous and give silly answers.

I shouldn’t be saying this, high treason really, but I sometimes wonder if Americans aren’t fooled by our accent into detecting a brilliance that may not really be there.

Knowing what I now know I would never have done anything so fatuous; but then I never would have known what I know now had I not.

Nothing in this world is at it seems. Except, possibly, porridge.

One technology doesn’t replace another, it complements. Books are no more threatened by Kindle than stairs by elevators.

P. G. Wodehouse… used, when in town, to solve the problem of the long walk to the post-office by the simple expedient of tossing his letters out of his window: his belief that the average human, finding a stamped and addressed envelope on the pavement, would naturally pop it into the nearest pillar-box was never once, in decades, shown to be unfounded.

The English language is an arsenal of weapons. If you are going to brandish them without checking to see whether or not they are loaded, you must expect to have them explode in your face from time to time.

The only reason people do not know much is because they do not care to know. They are incurious. Incuriousity is the oddest and most foolish failing there is.

There is something in the American project, something in simple American oratory, something in the hope and idealism of this frustrating and contradictory nation that still makes my spirits soar and my heart leap with optimism and belief. If only they understood how to make a cup of tea.

What’s magical about [bears] is that they just spend one-hundred percent of every minute of every hour of every day being a bear. And a tree-frog spends all of its time being a tree-frog. We spend all our time trying to be somebody else.

What makes a good family? Well, I suppose obviously love. Love lubricated often I think by humor. I think a family that can laugh at each other and tease themselves and who are able to be jolly with each other I think is the key.