Rebecca Gieseking

I recently posted a test model combining a diagonal shift with a vertical plane intersecting it. This model uses that motif in a complete vase, combined with a knit form. I’ve played a bit recently with other knit forms, but this is the first to incorporate color changes.

The knit piece took quite a bit of testing to get the shape worked out. Since it’s easier to adjust size on the origami piece than on the knit piece, I finished the knit piece before I started the origami piece. The dimensions of the two aren’t quite identical, but I’m fairly happy with how similar they came out. I have some ideas in mind for how to clean up those minor differences if I do another similar model.

I’ve been playing recently with variations of diagonal shifts, including twists that join tubes of different shapes. This model incorporates that idea, using a 16-sided tube on the bottom and a square tube on the top. The square portion of the twist inherently has curved edge segments, so I mimicked that shape in the painted lines. This creates an interplay between the curved lines on the flat planes on the top half of the vase, contrasted with the straight-looking lines created by sine waves on the bottom half of the vase.

I recently posted a few test folds of pleated tubes. In this model, I’ve used those pleats in a more finished vase-like form. The curve here reminds me of a question mark, or of a swan’s neck.

The triangular shape means that each pleat requires a lot fewer folds and reference points than my previous curved-neck vases with 10 sides. I’m still exploring whether this is a direction I’m interested in turning into a series.

I’ve played before with some mixed media designs, combining origami with ceramics. This piece is a first attempt at combining origami with knitting.

The wavy form is similar to a shape I’ve used in a few previous designs, especially my wavy split bowl. This form is folded from a rectangle, with pleats that release near the top of the form to create the waves.

The knit piece is mostly a simple seed stitch with increases to create the waves, plus a bit of ribbing to create the fold points on the corners. Similar to my ceramics pieces, I made the knit piece first because the dimensions are a bit more challenging to control as precisely. The number of stitches I added in each wave was planned to match the proportions of each pleat in the origami form, which is why the shapes came out so similar.

One of the new challenges of this piece was figuring out how to stiffen the knit form with something that soaked into the yarn and didn’t show on the surface. It turns out that a couple coats of methylcellulose (well know to many origamists for making paper crisp and wet-foldable) works fairly well, along with some wire to hold the shape in place while it dries.

A few more views of the two pieces together:

This piece is a continuation of my series of curved-neck vases. The neck is a series of crimp bends to create the curve. This is from a couple years ago and spent most of a year at the Science Museum Oklahoma, but I didn’t get it posted then.

I like the look of these forms and how much more organic they are than many of my more purely geometric designs. Unfortunately, the series of crimp-folds along the neck is such a pain to fold that I’m not in a hurry to add any more to the series.