Embroidering an origami-style box for small things

Original text by Marina Belova 

I think that many people are familiar with origami — everybody I know had made paper fliers, pompoms, tulips, etc., in their childhood. Today I suggest to refresh our memory about this art and make the simplest possible box called "masu". 

Of course, the biggest attraction of this project for me is that I won't have to sew. I'll just embroider the fabric and make a three-dimensional figure out of it. 

So. I plan to embroider only 4 sides of the box. I drew this simple design and fitted it into a square: 

It is very easy to calculate the measurements of a square piece of fabric and the position of the embroidery on it using this formula: 

L=1.41х (S+2xH) 

• Where L is a square side length 
• S is bottom length 
• H is the box height 

Why the diagonal position of the embroidery? Because I folded the paper to create a box, marked the sides where I wanted my embroidery and unfolded it back again. Then I did a drawing in Corel, based on the proportions I calculated using a formula above. 

I digitized my drawing: 

Hooped the fabric together with the stabilizer: 

And embroidered the entire design: 

Two red stitches on the right and on the left of the ornament are parts of the borderline of my future square visible in the frame. Tacks mark the centers of the sides of my square. According to them I'll draw the required square and cut it out. I didn't tear away the stabilizer from the wrong side. It is necessary for making the fabric coarse. 

I extended the embroidered lines so that they formed a square: 

Cut the square out: 

Now it's time to make a box. I turn the fabric the wrong side up and fold it in two and then again to get proper creases. They will help me to make the box. 

This way: 

Then open the square up and fold the corners into the center: 

You'll get an envelope: 

After that I fold every edge into the center of the square and unfold them back again to make the sides of the box: 

Like this: 

Now it's time to assemble the box: For this, I need to unfold two corners diagonally: 

And then form the sides by folding vertically along the creases: 

This way: 

Now I fold the fabric in along the creases and also fold the corners into the center of the bottom the box: 

This is all, in a nutshell. The box is ready. It is harder to fold the fabric than paper but not impossible. Especially if you harden the fabric so as to make it coarse. 

I put a piece of ordinary cardboard on the bottom of the box to cover the edges of the fabric. But, in my opinion, it is possible to turn this into an advantage, too. Fox example, to embroider on the heavyweight fabric and harden it with the interfacing material and then finish the edges to prevent fraying.