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My word! Have you seen this fascinating art form? Admittedly, this is more of an ancient craft form but that does not make it any less impressive. What am I going on about? Why, Furoshiki, of course. Apparently it is this age-old, fabulous process of cloth wrapping. To be clear, this term refers to the cloth itself but somehow also applies to the folding technique itself. So by furoshiki, I also refer to various methods of whipping out a select piece of cloth and swirling it around an object in the most artist forms.
You have to excuse my fascination. I was born with meager gift wrapping talent, let alone fancy cloth wrapping tendencies. At birthdays and other special occasions my gift was the tardy, sad looking piece with rumpled creases and extra cellotape. To be fair, the extra tape was meant to cover torn paper bits.
So tell me more about Furoshiki, you say? Think of it as this delicate art form that can dress up the most mundane object. A part of me suspects that Cinderella's fairy godmother had some serious furoshiki folding skills as opposed to the purported magic wand.
According to Wikipedia, furoshiki was a traditional means of carrying objects. And, of course, for decoration.
I found
this interesting site that detailed a wide variety of furoshiki techniques. There are ways to wrap books, bottles, boxes and pieces of various shapes and sizes. The possibilities are endless! If you can add a tantalizing allure to carrying a watermelon with a suika tsutsumi wrap, anything is possible. To justify my endless gushing, I must confess that in my mind I imagine my favorite anime vampire to scurry out of town after wrapping up his only belongings with a fancy folding move.