Artful Ideas

Paper Folding

Have you ever made a paper aeroplane? If you have, you have enjoyed the most recent and popular addition to the old craft of paper folding. This craft is called origami.

Originally, the Japanese invented about 100 origami figures. Most are natural forms, such as birds, frogs, and fish. One form of origami, with shapes all its own, is called noshi. These are pleated paper decorations that Japanese people attach to gifts. The Japanese like to use squares of paper for making origami figures. The squares range from 15 to 25 centimetres in size. They also use a special paper called washi.

Papermaking families in Japan still make washi by hand. To make washi, they first mix a glue-like liquid with bark, cotton, linen, or tree fibres and stir the mixture into a mush called pulp.

Next, they dip a special screen into the pulp and drain out most of the liquid. Then, they place the wet sheets on a flat surface to dry. The Japanese use the washi for umbrellas, kites, and origami.

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Roald Dahl (September 13 1976 to November 23, 1990) was a British author of children’s books. Born in Wales to Norwegian immigrant parents, Dahl served in the Royal Air Force during World War II. He became an ace aviator and intelligence officer. He grew to prominence as a writer in the 1940s with works for both children and adults. In 1953, he published the best-selling story collection “Someone Like You” and went on to publish the popular book “James and the Giant Peach” in 1961. In 1964, he released another highly successful work, “Charlie and the Chocolate Factory”, which was later adapted to film twice. A few of Dahl’s most popular works include:

James and the Giant Peach (1961)

This is a book about a lonely little boy who lives with his two mean aunts. One day, James gets a bag of mysterious things from an old man. The crocodile tongues that the bag contains squirm into the ground and a giant peach grows. James notices a hole in the peach and crawls in to escape from his aunts. Once inside the peach, he meets a giant Old Green Grasshopper, a Ladybug, a Spider, a Centipede, and an Earthworm. They start out on an amazing adventure. The book won widespread critical and commercial acclaim.

Charlie and the Chocolate Factory (1964)

Three years after his first children’s book, Dahl published another big winner, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. An eccentric businessman, Willy Wonka runs a fantastical chocolate factory. Wonka hides five Golden Tickets inside his bars of chocolate. The finders are to be rewarded with a tour of his factory and a lifetime supply of chocolate. Charlie Bucket’s adventure begins when he finds a ticket and wins a whole day inside the chocolate factory. But, he has not idea of the surprises that are in store for him! Some critics accused Dahl of portraying a racist stereotype with his Oompa-Loompa characters in the book, but that never deterred him from writing more.

Fantastic Mr. Fox (1970)

The main character is a clever fox that talks, his wife and four little foxes. In order to feed his family, he steals food from three cruel farmers, Boggis, Bunce, and Bean, every night. The vexed farmers attempt to capture and kill him. How Mr. Fox outwits the farmers makes a delightful tale.

Over his decades-long writing career, Dahl wrote 19 children’s books. Despite their popularity, these books have been the subject of some controversy, as critics and parents have balked at their portrayal of children’s harsh revenge on adult wrongdoers. But that has not stopped children across the world from devouring his books with glee!

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The traditional tailor can take account of long arms or a spreading waistline and achieve a perfect fit. But made-to-measure clothes get more expensive every year, and the modern clothing industry has to make off-the-peg clothes that fit most people with no alteration.

One of the first proper surveys into people’s measurements was carried out by US Government, who measured 1000 recruits during the First World War to determine the best sizes for uniforms.

In Britain, 5000 women were measured in the early 1950s, with some unexpected results. Existing size charts were based on an average height for women of 5ft 6in (168cm) – but the survey found that the real average was 5ft 3in (160cm).

Today, in large companies, from a basic pattern produced by a designer, a computer produces a range of sizes to cover the normal variations of the population. Unusually small or large people complain that they can never find anything to fit them, and they are right; it does not make economic sense for manufacturers to produce the limited number of garments that would be sold.

The next step is to use the patterns to cut out the material for the garment. Rolls of material, which can be more than 100ft (30m) long, are laid out perfectly flat by machine. Hundreds of layers are spread on top of one another so that a large number of garments can be cut out at once. Computers are used to arrange the patterns on the material so that the minimum of cloth is wasted. A paper computer printout, called a marker, is laid on the layers of fabric ready for cutting.

The actual cutting of the material is done by knives guided from above, or in some modern factories, by laser beams controlled by computers. The laser, an intense beam of light, burns a clean cut through the material, far sharper than the cut of any knife.

Next, the pieces of material have to be sewn together. Many operations, such as buttonholing, can be done automatically. A hand-sewer averages 20 stitches a minute; modern machinery can sew up to 7000 stitches a minute. Some clothes are not stitched in the traditional way at all, but fused together.

Finally clothes are pressed, to mould them into the right shape and to make sharp creases or pleats. Special presses, called buck presses, are designed for each part of a garment.

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