I've had this crease pattern sitting around for a while waiting to be folded. Finally got around to doing it.  It's a linear flagstone tessellation comprised of rhombuses and trapezoids. There seem to be infinite ways to combine these two shapes into various patterns. I particularly like this one because it's simultaneously random and structured.  My execution could've been somewhat neater. Some of the seams are a little wonky. It's been pretty humid lately where I'm at. Even better quality paper has its limits.  Although the back side came out looking pretty perfect. Nice.  For a flagstone tessellation , it's not that hard. Everything comes together pretty harmoniously.  I did run the pics through photoshop to change the color. Just because I can.  If you want to fold it, see the crease pattern below. Where you place the triangles on the back is somewhat personal preference. Although there are some rules to follow. You don't want the triangle to tou...

Here's a recent tessellation I created . The hardest part of creating anything, tessellations or otherwise, is coming up with the initial idea. Once you have that, it's just a matter of following the clues to bring the design to completion.  In this case, the starting point was a set of four triangles and three rhombuses. I repeated the pattern circularly until the circuit was closed.  From there, I had a somewhat large center gap that needed to be reconciled.  I was able to do so using a small offset hexagonal twist surrounded by small triangle twists. The little stars.  There are many ways to create origami tessellations . I find they are a combination of puzzle, geometry and art.  I learned to do them in stages. Starting out by following other designers' crease patterns. Then progressing to reverse engineering finished models without any guidance. And finally moving on to creating my own. Video tutorial and crease pattern included.   

This origami tessellation is sort of an exercise in how much chaos can be contained in a single sheet of paper.  It also features an interesting illusion.  When you look at it, it appears that small isosceles triangles and regular small triangles are rotating around small hexagonal twists.  It's actually rhombuses and triangles. But half of each rhombus is facing upwards while the other half is folded in the reverse. It's a neat little optical illusion.  As far as folding it goes, it was intense. All those little folds are literally on top of each other. There is simply no relief until you get to the edges .  The other side is just as crazy. It's definitely an advanced origami tessellation that demands strong paper and a lot of patience.  I did it, just to see if I could. Sometimes that's all the motivation that's required.  If you're feeling a little insane too, you can use the crease pattern to fold it for yourself. 

Lately, I've been looking for tessellations where I can incorporate a triad of triangles into the design. By that I mean, a set of three small triangles tucked into a central triangle.  This tessellation is a new design that fulfills that directive. You can see that idea in the three 'Mercedes Stars' which appear at mid-center. It can also be seen near the edges where the triangles are facing upward instead.  This tessellation is mostly flagstone based, but the addition of the triangle sets makes it a hybrid design.  Full on flagstones have their constraints when it comes to how the various shapes can successfully interact with one another. However, by adding different style elements, we can find new configurations which otherwise wouldn't be possible.  Looking at the back of the tessellation you can easily see the triangle sets working to facilitate the pattern on the front.  Should you want to fold this, the crease pattern is available below.  * The ima...

 It's time for something a little less intense. Sometimes those turn out to be some of my favorite finished designs.  For me, I love the puzzle of aspect of complex origami tessellations . How, you come up with an idea, but then you still have to solve exactly how to make it work geometrically.  Even so, it's a nice detour to occasionally do something simpler. It also saves money on fancy paper. LOL. Since you can do the easier ones with ordinary paper.  This is 20 lb. yellow printer paper. It always backlights so well.  This tessellation is simpler, but it's not simple. I'd say it's probably an intermediate level fold .  I designed it as the second picture. But as often happens with tessellations similar to this, I wound up liking the other side more.  My crease pattern is somewhat worse for wear, but it still illustrates all the components of the structure.  And now... a video tutorial is also available!

  This origami tessellation uses a similar style to my ' Higgs Boson' design . It swaps out some of the shapes for different ones, but follows the same kind of thought process for how it's conceived. Lots of overlapping layers, collapses and tucks. Lots of fun.  Now, to look at my rendition, you might think it's not an actual tessellation. The center doesn't appear to repeat. It's true. On a 32 pleat triangle grid which only has enough space for two series of modules, there is not enough room to repeat. However, with a larger grid, the third set could in fact repeat the center.  On the reverse side, you can see how the triangles and trapezoids interact to help facilitate the design on the front.  The sneakiest part of designs like this one is keeping track of which way you want your fold to go. Assuming you want a consistent pattern that is. When folds land at close angles to each other, they must go in opposite directions. So, part of the fun is deciding how t...

 Continuing my theme of things tucked into triangles, I have this intermediate tessellation . It came together very quickly. No puzzling or agonizing required.  It begins with rhombus stars. Then the aforementioned triangle. Three rhombuses are tucked into the triangle. Each of those rhombuses is a part of a separate star.  Filling in the gaps was no trouble at all. A couple more rhombuses did the trick.  Thinking about the structure prior to folding it, I wasn't sure whether it would be hard or easy. I thought probably somewhere in the middle. Turns out that it was not much trouble at all.  The actual hard part is sometimes the folding the tessellation . But more often tit's coming up with the idea. And the task of bringing the idea to completion.  Even when you have a good starting concept, it's not always simple to figure out how to make it work. In this case, it actually was pretty easy. But a lot of the time, it's a puzzle that takes some solving....

 Here's a simple idea I had that creates a rather intricate original tessellation . It's so much fun when they turn out that way.  The idea is just rhombuses tucked into triangles repeating seamlessly.  When I drew it out on the grid paper, it looked like it would be very hard to fold. Lots of shapes all arranged quite close together. It turned out to be not that difficult.  It's still a somewhat difficult tessellation and it was a little troublesome because as I went along tucking and collapsing the paper began to tense and curl up on itself. But it definitely wasn't as hard as I thought it would be.  The back side is pretty cool. Because of all the triangle tucks on the front, you get a somewhat unique design on the other side.  Another notable aspect, is that I was able to arrange all the triangles on the back to all face the same direction. That's seldom possible.  Crease pattern follows. New addition: a video demo of how I folded this tessellatio...

 This is a neat one with some interesting features.Some of the structure is simple. Open hexagons with double rhombuses around them. Pretty standard flagstone type stuff. But what that pattern creates are a series of triangular 'windows'. Inside those 'windows' you can fit a small triangle at the center with three rhombuses tucked into it. That's the cool feature that makes this particular tessellation unique.  The back side has an interesting pattern also. You get several sets of three triangles collapsed into a central triangle. The backs of tessellations like this don't usually have such a distinct pattern.  This is a difficult tessellation . There are a lot of tiny folds that have to been done and they have to be done in some rather small spaces.  If you're feeling up to it, the crease pattern follows. Filed under: August 2026 Origami Tessellations  

  This origami tessellation follows a path that I've taken recently with several others. It mixes elements of flagstone tessellations with tuck fold techniques in order to discover new patterns and combinations.  Specifically in this tessellation, the inspiration was doubling the number of rhombuses rotating around a central open hexagon. Typically, with a flagstone style center such as this one, you'd have six rhombuses. One attached to each edge of the hexagon.  In this design, I was able to do 12 rhombuses by tucking the extra six into the spaces between the standard six.  To repeat the center module, I added more rhombuses tucked vertically into the edges of the standard six. Then I was able to repeat the center set by tucking into the top of the extra vertical rhombus.  I filled the remaining gaps with more hexagons and some trapezoids. The whole structure is much clearer when viewing the crease pattern that I've included at the end.  I really fo...

It took a little while to figure out how to get this tessellation to work properly. But I was confident that it could work and I would up hitting upon the solution.  My starting idea was for the center point. The open hexagon with 12 overlapping trapezoids around it. Repeating that was no problem. But the spaces that were left puzzled me for a bit before I realized how to solve it.  On the back side there are three rhombuses. They flank the open triangles seen in the gaps between all the trapezoids on the front.  This is a difficult tessellation . There's a lot of work to be done on both sides of the paper. It combines aspects of flagstone tessellations, tuck and twist styles.  Crease pattern included. Filed under: August 2026 Origami Tessellations

 This is an unusual idea that I had recently. Most origami tessellations either have a linear pattern or a circular one. This one kind of has both and neither at the same time.  When you first look at it, you might think, that's not a tessellation, because it doesn't repeat. But, actually it does. Just in a different way.  The pattern is diagonal, heading off in four different directions from a rhomboid starting point.The sequence spreads outward from each edge of the central rhombus. An infinite array. Rhombus, trapezoid, trapezoid, rhombus and so on and so on. It's hard to see in the finished fold, but is much clearer when you look at the crease pattern, which is at the end of this.  That progression creates gaps which can easily be filled with large hexagons and more rhombuses and trapezoids. Circular arrays butting up against the linear ones. As you move further outward the gaps change and you have to fill them with different sets of shapes. I took it as far as ...

 This is a curious origami tessellation that I found. When you look at it as pictured above it looks like a simple pattern of four quadrants each containing the same molecule. Which is true.  Each molecule contains a diamond shapes comprised of four rhombuses which are flanked by four trapezoids. Simple. Right? However, when you alter your perspective by turning the tessellation 90 degrees you see something totally different. It becomes a linear pattern. Same exact design, just viewed from a different angle. Geometry is fun that way.  It's mostly a flagstone tessellation , except where the four trapezoids converge. At their center are some overlapping rhombuses.  When you look at the view of the back side you can see all the triangles that I used to connect the shapes on the front. You can also clearly see the duos of rhombuses which create the non flagstone center points.  It's a neat exercise in rotation and perception.  Crease pattern included.  Fi...

 I've come up with a few different tessellations based off of the starting point of three trapezoids tucked into the points of a triangle collapse. ' Stock Market ' is one. ' Eyes of the Pyramid ' is another. ' Pickled Carrot Salad ' is a third.  This origami tessellation, which I've named 'Existential Crisis' is the latest configuration that I've discovered.  It uses both flagstone style folds and collapsed triangles. Combining different folding styles in one tessellation is a great way to unlock new and interesting patterns. In this original tessellation the central molecule consists of a small triangle collapse dead center with three trapezoids tucked into its points. There are also three triangles in the gaps between the edges of the trapezoids. They connect in the standard flagstone fashion.  In order to repeat the center design, I add two additional triangles onto the long edges of the trapezoids using flagstone connections again. The ...

 This hybrid flagstone/collapse tessellation is from just the other day. The concept is to combine classic flagstone style folds with traditional tucks/collapses. I've done a few tessellations using this technique. This is the latest one.  Open back hexagons are connected to rhombuses using flagstone folds. Then I add a triangle collapses between each rhombus and use the top point to repeat the pattern.  On the back of the tessellation you can see that reconciling the remaining spaces in the design required a few more triangles and some more rhombuses as well.  I would say this is a difficult , possibly advanced tessellation . I had a lot of trouble with it, but I'm not sure if it was strictly because of the complexity or if the weather didn't factor into it to some extent.  If you want to fold it, be prepared to spend some time on it.  Crease pattern and video tutorial included. Filed under: July 2026 Origami Tessellations