Bird Base Tessellation

This is designed by Christiane Bettens, the same person who designed the Roman Church Floor Tilling Tessellation I have featured before.
The diagrams, one again, are found in Eric Gjerde’s Book “Origami Tessellations.”
In the book, it is labelled “Intermediate.” Well, it’s pretty easy, maybe if you did what I did (i used a grid of 16 X 16 units).
Apparently, you can expand the range of the tessellation. I just was not able to since I was very sleepy when I made this.
The tessellation is simple, but elegant. It is also pretty easy to fold. You just have to make a lot of creasings to achieve the best output.

Double Triangle Sawtooth Tessellation

This is designed by Miguel Angel Blanco Munoz from Barcelona, Spain, while the diagrams are in Eric Gjerde’s Book Origami Tessellations.
When I started in making it, I was like, “wow, it’s so easy. I wonder why Gjerde put it in the intermediate section of the book." Well, I found out why.
Start working from the center, and it is pretty easy. But when you reach the rim of the tessellation, you will have no choice but to open the paper up.
If that is not how you did it, well that’s how I was able to complete it. But, despite it being very hard, at least the tessellation turned out pretty nice.


The tessellation is composed of some not-so-ordinary hexagon twists, and some triangle twists connected together in a way that they form a rhombus.
If I were to rank it from 1-10, 10 being the hardest, it would be a 6.
From the picture, it really seems easy. But, when you start making it, it may be a little pain in the ass, but it’s worth it.

Little Bird Bookmark

This is designed by Barth Dunkan.
I was looking at some funny images and bastard-looking people (who are not my friends on Facebook…I mean my friends on Facebook are happy and friendly XD sometimes they make my day brighten up a bit) on Facebook.
Then one of my friends message me and tells me to make this cute bookmark.
The model really caught his attention, and knowing that it is origami, he came to me.
Then I said, “Sure, I guess.”
And now, I present to you, this quaint little bookmark which also acts like a stand-alone over-the-edge decoration or maybe an eyesight-destroyer if you use all-red paper and a bastard camera.

If you think the photo is out-of-focus, well it’s just because some parts of the bird is made up of many layers of paper. I never use a poor quality photograph in Origami A Day.
The model is a bit complicated. If I were to rank the model’s difficulty from 1-10, 10 being the hardest, I would give it a 4.
Like a tessellation, you need to fold an 8 by 8 grid on the square paper. There are also so many pre-creasings, but your hard work will be rewarded by a nice bird bookmark in which you have to slam the poor bird’s tail between the 2 pages you are stuck in, in the book.
http://neorigami.com/neo/index.php/en/component/k2/item/7002-little-bird-bookmark

Pinwheel tessellation

This is designed by Eric Gjerde, and the diagrams are in his book “Origami Tessellations”.
When you make this tessellation, expect A LOT of creasings, since you will be needing it in the open-back triangle twists.
Gjerde stated in his book about this tessellation that this is one of his favorite tessellations, and he hopes that it also becomes one of MY favorites.
It’s nice I guess, oh what the heck. I LOVE IT.


It’s just a couple of hexagon twists and open-back triangle twists put together to make a masterpiece (wow ah) and it’s really easy.
PS. The diagrams in the book used a hexagon-shaped piece of paper. The photo of the tessellation used a square piece. Oh well, maybe it’s a matter of common sense and stupidity. :)
If you want a square tessellation, use a square piece. If a hexagonal tessellation, use a hexagonal piece. Sounds simple right?
The same mistake goes with the 3 6 3 6 tessellation diagrams.
Oh well, all I can say about it is, it’s a good tessellation for beginners. :)
I guess it is already one of my favorites :D though my SUPER favorite is the Open-Back hexagon Twist. :) Yep, the one Sara Adams is upset about when she used transparent paper.

3 6 3 6 Tessellation

This is designed by Shuzo Fujimoto, and the instructions are in Gjerde’s Book “Origami Tessellations”.
I wasn’t aiming for this tessellation at first. I was supposed to make the famous Arms of Shiva tessellation, but I immediately lost interest with it (I did not say I cannot do it). Then, I thought about the paper.
I thought, “sayang, maaaksaya tong papel na ito,” which meant, “Pity, the paper will be wasted,” and so I made this:

…….which when not back-lighted, looks like this:

PS: Orange is my favorite color :D
It’s really easy, and it yields a beautiful design when back-lighted. It is just a couple of hexagon twists and triangle twists, that’s why it is named “3 6 3 6" after the number of sides of a triangle and a hexagon.
Somehow, Its size shrinkage also is great, much greater than the Basket Weave Tessellation last time. So, apparently, this is the smallest tessellation I have made ever since I have posted this post. (wut)
Maybe I’ll do the Arms of Shiva next time…..

Rhombus Weave Tessellation

This is designed by Eric Gjerde and instructions are found in the book “Origami Tessellations”.
The tessellation I made is VERY different from the tessellation pictured in the book.
This is from the book:This is what I made:

Looks boring, right? I searched the tessellation in Google and guess what? Only ONE person was able to make the tessellation version shown in the book.
According to Gjerde, if I use a square in this tessellation, a parallelogram shaped tessellation will show up. Guess what? I got a rectangle.
It still looks nice though, especially when it is back-lighted.

So somehow, I felt a half of success, and a half of disappointment, but I still feel pleased with my work.
Maybe I will try to figure next time how Gjerde got a parallelogram-shape. But I’m still keeping the rectangle :)
The tessellation is labeled as “Intermediate” in the book, though it is pretty easy. Maybe it is because you have to figure out in what part of the grid you will make the twist since one simple mistake will make your tessellation looking like a bastard piece of paper.
Basically it is just a series of rhombic twists arranged to look like a wave or some snakeskin or whatever.
This is my tenth tessellation.

Basket Weave Tessellation

This is designed by Joel Cooper, and the diagrams and crease pattern appear in Gjerde’s Book “Origami Tessellations" though he also posted the crease pattern in his website.
http://www.origamitessellations.com/2006/11/joel-coopers-basket-weave-crease-pattern/
When I made the Roman Church Floor Tilling (d. b. Christiane Bettens) it’s longest length was only 14.2 cm across (I always start with an 8.5” X 8.5” construction paper or a hexagon cut from the said dimensions), so you could really see the great decrease in size of the paper.
I thought it was the smallest I made, until I made the Basket Weave thingy.
From a hexagon cut from an 8.5” X 8.5” construction paper, I got a (longest length) 12.1 cm tessellation. It’s really cute though.

You can easily see why it is called “Basket Weave.” I come from the Philippines and baskets woven from rattan are very common here. It’s one of the products my country is well-known for.
It also looks great with back-lighting.
In the book, It is considered as one of the easy projects.
BUT there is a flaw in the directions on how to make the tessellation. The photographed instructions only involve ONE open-back hexagon twist. But, of course, let us not rely in the instructions and try to discover the possibilities ourselves.
Okay, somehow I got a very serious tone there…..I LOVE PIE.