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In spite of it being right during peak Christmas knitting season, I decided to make my mother a mobile of a thousand paper cranes. Well, you can't have a mobile with a thousand paper cranes unless you've got a thousand cranes made. It took 15 days to fold them all, but here they are in a shoebox, layered about two inches deep. |
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The bare crossbeams, ready to go. Yes, it's tied onto the light fixture. I can't get a screw to take anywhere in my apartment; the ceiling appears to be tin smeared with a thin layer of plaster. It's really useless. |
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All the threads are now tied on and ready to go. |
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The first crane graces the threads. |
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Two strands done... |
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Three strands done... |
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Four strands done... |
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Eight of thirteen strands done... |
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Disbelief and a recount: it's done. The strands were recounted several times to make sure each had the right number. Just because we counted out the birds into piles of 68-74-78-81 and put each pile into a numbered paper bag (I should have taken a photo of the bags; that was pretty funny) doesn't mean we counted them right--one strand had 70, and another had 89 (that's what happens when you watch Eddie Izzard while stringing, I guess), and in the last moments, I had to fold three more cranes. But all the strands are counted, affirmed correct in number, and now to adjust the spacing of the birds and finish the ends with the glass beads and crimps, and then trim the excess thread off. |
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A shot of the mobile taken lying underneath it. |
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While I had no luck getting a shot of the way the strands of birds angle upwards as they move into the centre of the mobile (has a cathedral ceiling feel to it), I did get a decent shot of one of the ends. Each strand ends (and begins) with a crane in this paper, sitting atop a frosted glass bead. The knot holding the bead on was sealed with wax and then crimped with a little aged-brass-look bead crimp. |
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