In elementary school I was introduced to the story of “Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes”. Folding a thousand origami cranes seemed like such a huge task and I always wondered if I would ever be able to do it. I have done some origami since elementary school but did not start my collection of cranes until recently. My project of folding cranes started shortly after watching an episode of “Ghost in the Shell”. In the episode a character who has lost the use of his right arm learns to fold cranes with his left hand only. Of course, I had to grab a piece of paper and try to fold a crane with only my left hand, and with a little effort it worked. So, knowing that it is possible to fold a crane one handed with the weaker hand I decided to start 1000 cranes to see if that was possible as well. I used 3″ squares of paper, so the finished cranes are only about 2″ across.

So why did I fold 1000 origami cranes? Folding origami cranes was a calming form of meditation during a very stressful time in my life, and it gave me something to work towards. The papers themselves are very beautiful and lovely to work with. Some people even believe that a person who folds 1000 cranes will be granted a wish! I am not sure I believe that but who knows, maybe it is possible. In January 2012, less than one year after I started, I finished folding my 1000th paper crane. Now I just have to decide how to display them!

So this is what my 1000 cranes look like:

One of my recent projects was to design needle felted hummingbirds. Hummingbird feathers seem to take on different shades and colors depending on how the light hits them so it was a challenge to find wool colors that would come close to the same effect. I started getting requests from people to make more hummingbirds for Mother’s Day. Making these brought back good memories of my grandmother who passed away. My grandmother always loved to watch hummingbirds, and as long as I can remember she always kept feeders by her windows. When I was a child I helped her to mix sugar water for the feeders. She would have loved a needle felted hummingbird and would have hung it with her collection of miniature birdhouses.