A great source of new things for me has been my parent’s next-door neighbour and family friend, Hazel. I’ve had numerous weird and wacky suggestions from her, but also some gems that I’ve been looking forward to trying – today’s new thing is one example of that. My mum and Hazel went for afternoon tea earlier in the year at a local hotel (once owned by Beatrix Potter!) and they found the interior was decorated with open books, whose pages were folded in neat, intricate designs. Hazel thought this would be an ideal new thing for me, and although at the time I questioned how on earth I could do something like that, yesterday, after my origami adventure, I decided book folding could be the logical next step.
Surprising to me, book folding is a hugely popular craft – a quick Google search brings up pages and pages of results for patterns along various themes such as “love” and “butterfly”. I was overwhelmed by choice, and honestly, a bit intimidated: I actually wanted to make something half decent and it all looked so complicated. I eventually found a YouTube series which was aimed at total beginners and had a free, easy to understood heart pattern.
It didn’t start well. I happily sat down with a paperback, before realising it wouldn’t support the weight of the open pages. Then, when I did find a hardback (I don’t have many and the ones I do have I didn’t really want to ruin with my craft attempts – those books are expensive!) it was too small. Deciding to carry on anyway, I got my ruler out to start marking out exactly where I would fold each place, only to find that the only ruler in the house was the one where all the measurements had worn off. A few deep sighs and a tape measure later, I was ready with my make-shift ruler to get going.
Although I’m sure people find the task book folding relaxing, I found the effort of carefully marking on each sheet of a 200-page book the precise measurements of where to fold and then making the fold straight and crisp, monotonous and boring. I did this for two hours, purely so I could show Hazel I’d given it a go, but I really didn’t enjoy it. I will say though, I was pretty proud of the results.
I really think this looks nice, and Hazel was very impressed, but I’m not sure if I found it worth it. Although it wasn’t hard, and I didn’t hate it, I think finding it a bit boring is even worse. Plus, I’m not sure how I feel about taking a perfectly good book and making it basically unreadable. I know I can unfold it again, but it wouldn’t be the same. I think this will be my one and only foray into the book folding world, and I’m perfectly at peace with that.
New Day, New Thing 