My Clover Heart design is, in essence, a confluence of the work of two great creators, Shuzo Fujimoto and Francis Ow. A friend of mine from Germany, Billie Griebler, brought to my attention the Four-Leaf cLover designed by Ow, our beloved “heart specialist.” It is a beautiful model, in which Ow achieved the look of a color change by coloring in the clover. In his comments he wrote: “I coloured the clover. The model will show just one colour. I am trying to improve on this.” I am sure by improvement he meant that he would have loved to achieve the color change by means of folding. But alas, he left us before accomplishing that, so Billie requested that I design the color-change version.
In the process, I designed a series of four Clover Hearts with color change. I experimented with the shape and size of the heart as well as the clover and its location on the heart. Interestingly, the clover part can be adapted to any design that starts with a crossed box pleat such as Fujimoto’s Hydrangea (as seen in the heart on the right in the photo below), or any design that starts with a four-sink base, such as JC Nolan’s Andrea’s Rose.
In honor of the memories of Shuzo Fujimoto and Francis Ow, I am presenting to you notes for my Clover Heart 1, which is the simplest of the lot. I do not have step-by-step diagrams, but I am providing enough hints and clues for a keen folder to succeed. For some, it may be more thrilling to fold from clues than outright diagrams. You must be familiar with Fujimoto's Hydrangea collapse in order to fold from the notes. Diagrams by John Smith are available as a downloadable pdf. A video by Sara Adams is available here. Red-green duo paper is recommended, though plain kami is all right for learning.
Now that you have come this far into the article, please let me know if you would like hints and clues for Clover Hearts 2, 3, and 4 by writing comments below, and I will try to post them throughout 2020.