Buckram Origami

After initially trying out the origami shapes in a soft fabric I decided to try a more rigid one. In these pictures I have used a material called Buckram which is commonly used in bookbinding and for stiffening garments. Buckram is normally made from cotton, though linen is sometimes used as well, and gets its stiffness from being dipped in different hardeners, these substances fill in the gaps between the fibres. Some types of buckram are water resistant as well, normally used for books where they could become susceptible to moisture and mildew and prevents them from becoming so easily worn. As my attempt with the other material hadn't worked very well with the origami pattern I had chosen I decided to try a simpler one where it was made from one square. I found as I was ironing it that it was considerably easier to get crisp folds which would hold in place properly, I still expected to have to sew it to make it stay together but when I came to assemble it I found that they stayed in place as if it were paper, see the bottom picture for my first attempt with the buckram. As this had worked so well without needing any aid to stay in place I decided to try out the pattern I had used earlier with the other fabric to see if a more complicated shape would work, see the top two pictures. Again the material worked really well and the assembly was a lot easier, I used a small amount of glue to simply secure the sides together, though it would have held without. I thought that the lines looked really effective and better represented the origami I had made in paper.

This material is very stiff so if I decided to put in a draw string it wouldn't gather very easily and if it was used very regularly, the folds could weaken and become less prominent. I'd also like to see how this material would react to being dipped in something like plaster, I think it would be able to absorb more of it than paper so could become stiffer and would be less likely to collapse. I think it could look really effective and as more would become trapped between the fibres, less would sit on the surface weakening the strong lines of the origami.