Byopia Press Advent Calendar 2022: Day Twelve and an Asterisk Garland

For an Advent Calendar dedicated to the circle, this garland is rather non-circular looking.

The asterisk garland did begin with a circle. First the circle was split in half.

An assemblage of semi-circular pieces made a garland.

When I looked at the accordion folds used for the semi-circles I saw this,

and another possibility appeared.

If you glue together the inner surfaces of the three valleys

you get this, which looks like part of an asterisk.

If you glue a bunch of them together, alternately up and down, you get a garland.

The units for the first test length were folded out of offcuts from earlier projects. The strips were grain-long and cut into 10 cm (4 in) lengths. I folded the units using Keith Smith’s method for folding an accordion.

It was difficult to fold the card stock evenly because I was working across the grain, but I liked the springiness that resulted. I also decided that the ‘legs’ at either end of the units could afford to be twice as long, but this meant they couldn’t be easily folded without measuring.

I created a pattern. Print out the file on card stock, score the fold lines (dots and dashes), then cut into narrow strips — mine were about 0.75 cm (0.3 in) wide. The pink vertical lines in the graphic below indicate the approximate cutting lines.) With the printed side of the strips facing you, mountain fold the dashed lines and valley fold the dotted ones. (I folded mine while watching a movie.)

I used  diluted PVA to glue the three valleys closed. It set after just a few seconds in my dry winter studio.

The final step is to glue the units together, alternating up an down. If you lay everything flat on your work surface, it’s easier to keep everything in a straight line. I found the gluing went quite quickly after I developed a rhythm.

Here’s the first part of my garland. You could use all one colour or multiple colours.

As an experiment, I started a garland of folded strips of newspaper when I noticed something about the image above. The result was what you see below.

Instructions for the snowflake will be posted in a few days.

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Tomorrow: Day Thirteen and Stars in Circles Part Two

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