224. Making a Palm Cross

Every Palm Sunday, I sit in church studying the ease with which the little kids fold the pretty crosses out of the palm fronds we were given when we entered the church. (The palms are to remind us of Jesus’s triumphant arrival in Jerusalem where the crowds were awaiting him holding palm branches.)

One year, I asked a little boy in the pew in front of us if he would make a cross out of my palm frond.   He kindly obliged me and that cross stayed on the wall in our kitchen all that year.  It was perfect.

This year, I made up my mind that I would learn to do it myself. I downloaded some instructions on the internet and then kept trying.  When the palms wouldn’t hold up any longer against the struggle I was giving them, I decided this would have to do for this year. 

Here are the instructions I was using from the internet.

Take a palm frond about 1/2 inch wide and 18 – 24 inches and hold upright.

1. Fold the top down, away from you, and the bottom up, away from you, to form the shaft of a cross of desired length.
2. Turn the end down and twist around to the right and across the front of the shaft to make a crossbar in proportion to the length.
3. Fold the end around behind the shaft.
4. Bring the end from behind, under the center. Fold from the bottom right to the top left and under again from the bottom left to the top right.
5. Fasten the end through the back loops to lock.

This is what I was hoping for:

 

And this is  –  Octo-woman style – is what I got.

If you know of a better way I can learn to do it, please holler.

Have a happy Holy Week.