My friend Cathy‘s mom writes a blog called In the Words of Women, “a sourcebook of writings by women whose lives spanned the stormy years before the American Revolution, the war and the fledgling years of the new nation.” She recently sent Cathy a puzzle posted on Two Nerdy History Girls ‒ how is this 18th century love letter folded? (The idea is the fold will keep people from reading the letter.) Knowing how I like folded things, Cathy sent the puzzle to me.

I didn’t recognize it, even after looking through my box of models. The Nerdy History Girls blog post had some other links to love letter folds, and this one had a repeating gif at the bottom that looked really familiar.

I poked around a bit on the web trying to jog my memory, then got side tracked on another project. A couple of hours later, it hit me (how many of you already knew the answer?): Victorian Puzzle Purse. For the past several years, around Valentine’s Day, Alice Simpson posts instructions for the purse on the Book Arts Listserv.

Besides Alice’s instructions, there are these from the Origami Resource Center (written directions to go along with the picture here)

Finally there is a nice modern example from steelbrush on Etsy.