Articles and Tutorials

There are some patterns that when I see them, I know I have to fold them.

Usually I keep a queue of about 10 of these patterns, but sometimes one skips to the front of the line.

Siren's Call is one of those.

The ways that variations can be made are kinda endless.

You can change the spacing, switch a twist to the other side, change a position from closed to open or vice versa.

Or, in some cases, you can stick more twists in between the twists in your tessellation!

So many options! When you put triangles next to hexagons you give yourself many, many options of what to fold next. You can fold another hexagon (of a different type!), a rhombus in any size or side of the paper, and probably more options that I haven't explored yet. Open Triangle Linked Flowers shows a dense arrangement of closed hexagons, open triangles, and standard rhombi - all on the same side.   Details Matter Would you tuck your triangles under or over? The crease pattern won't tell you, but you must decide if you want your tessellation to lay flat....

A little tweak for big results As I'm folding I have a constant refrain of "wouldn't it be cool if ..." going through my head. This time that thought popped up as I was preparing for the square tiling lessons in the current round of Tessellations by Tiles and coming up with new designs that take advantage of extended symmetry patterns available in the tiling. I knew what would happen if I used the hybrid twists to add extra space to a closed square in a weave pattern - that's Square Knots Weave - but what would happen if the hybrid...

Let's talk rotated grids Rotated grids are a powerful tool for folding display-ready tessellations. Since I figured out the mathematical underpinnings of this tool last year, I've considered rotation for every single display-style tessellation that I've folded. But when I talk about rotated grids, many people's eyes glaze over. It's not obvious to non-tessellators whether a piece has been folded on a rotated grid or not - and even experienced tessellators can struggle to identify rotation if they're not familiar with the technique. The bottom line with rotation is that I use it to align repeating elements of the pattern...