Gathering Folds

I teach aspiring tessellation folders to understand the patterns so that they can fold any design!

09/18/2026

Juggling Clubs is a 4/5 star tessellation difficulty pattern due to the sheer number of different positions inside the pattern and the dense spacing.

Here's a sequence you can use to train your skills to fold Juggling Clubs:
1. Closed Tri Alt Sides (Tess Starter Sequence): learn closed triangle twists, learn triangle wraps
2. Rhombus Weave (Tess Starter Sequence, Basic Twists Bootcamp): learn closed rhombus twists
3. Escalation (Tess Starter Sequence, Tess By Tiles, Tess Garden): use triangle and rhombus twists together, practice triangle wraps, learn to fold in stripes
4. Pebbled (Tess By Tiles, AOT25 tutorial, Tess Garden): learn to fold with loops of six rhombus twists, learn compound wraps, learn to fold with pseudo-tiling breaks
5. Pivot Blocks (AOT25 tutorial, Tess Garden): increase pattern density, learn to recognize symmetry points, practice folding with pseudo-tiling breaks
6. Juggling Clubs (YT demonstration, AOT25 ebook, Tess Garden): increase pattern complexity

All of these patterns have videos, whether tutorials or demonstrations, and they all have crease patterns available too.
Happy - which one will you fold next?
Let me know and I'm happy to send you the resource links!

09/17/2026

Lots of people assume that when you fold an origami tessellation you'll have the same pattern on both sides of the paper.
It's not usually the case, but it's true for Juggling Clubs!

There's one twist per edge that I modified from the original pattern to get the nice pleated border - can you spot what it is and what it would be in the infinite pattern?

09/16/2026

Juggling Clubs is more complicated than first meets the eye.
It has asymmetric flagstone motifs of rhombus twists (on both sides of the paper) plus regions with only triangle twists.

The pattern feels hexagonal, but has a maximum of 3-fold rotational symmetry.
Can you spot where the three distinct positions of 3-fold rotational symmetry are located in the pattern?
Check out the second image for the answers!

09/15/2026

✅ Folded from one sheet of paper
✅ Same pattern front and back
✅ Uses only closed triangle and closed rhombus twists
✅ Has a tutorial of the center in Advent of Tessellations 2025

This origami tessellation is named Juggling Clubs, and it has quite a bit of complexity for a pattern that uses only two different twists!

You can find a tutorial of the center in the Advent of Tess 2025 series at training.gatheringfolds.com/advent 🎉🎉
The series comes with 10 patterns to build the skills needed to reach this level, plus another 14 patterns that continue exploring more advanced techniques after this one!

09/14/2026

Takoyaki are fried octopus balls, and I learned about this Japanese appetizer by watching One Piece.
I haven't tried them yet, but they sound amazing!

The origami tessellation named Takoyaki that I'll be folding for the first time tomorrow has the "octopus" motif from Suction and Consortium inside of crunchy rings of dense twists.

This will be a new tiling for me too, so I'll be figuring out lots of things for the first time with this pattern.
You can come watch me fold and join the conversation in the chat at 10am NY time on Tuesday, September 15, or watch the replay afterwards.
Both options can be found here: https://youtube.com/live/1Se9Ejevdgc

09/11/2026

The main challenges with folding Christmas Cookies are the open rhombus twists, using pseudo-tiling breaks, and the high density of twists.

This sequence of patterns can help train you for those challenges, and here's what you'll learn along the way:
1. HT6 Closed Mixed Side (Tess Starter Sequence, Advent of Tess 2022): learn closed hexagon and triangle twists, learn triangle and compound wraps, fold in rings around the center
2. Dancing Ribbons (Tess Starter Sequence, Advent of Tess 2022): learn closed rhombus twists, use hexagon/triangle/rhombus twists in the same pattern, learn to recognize symmetry points
3. Open Just Rhombi (Tess Starter Sequence): learn to fold with pseudo-tiling breaks (leave some twists half-folded temporarily to avoid pleat overlaps), practice using symmetry points
4. Open Suns (Advent of Tess 2022, Tess Garden): learn open rhombus twists, practice pseudo-tiling breaks
5. Shattered (Tess Academy, Tess Garden): learn the HRTR Expansion 1 pseudo-tiling breaks, practice folding at high density
6. Christmas Cookies (Tess Garden): use open rhombus twists in a high density HRTR Expansion 1 tiling pattern

Almost all of these patterns have tutorials and I'm happy to send you the link - which one would you like to fold next?
Happy 🎉🎉

09/10/2026

In this tiling, it's much easier to align the repeats with the edge of the paper (and fold all the way to the edge) that it is to figure out the alignment that makes a pleated border.

That's why Christmas Cookies has a wavy border with partial rhombus twists and parts of the back of the paper showing.

Do you have a favorite side of this pattern?
Let me know in the poll!

09/09/2026

Christmas Cookies only has one shape of twists that's in a symmetry position in the infinite pattern.

That's the hexagon twists, which are in positions of 6-fold rotational symmetry.
Can you spot the rest of the symmetry positions?
Check your answers in the second image!

09/08/2026

Everything I design is in conversation with everything I've ever folded.
I'd used this same tiling with a different size of rhombus twist before, and I knew that I could freely change the sizes of twists in this tiling, so using the open rhombus twist was a logical next step.

If you'd like to start folding patterns like this one, I'd recommend starting from the basics with Tessellation Foundations (https://training.gatheringfolds.com/start) and continuing by learning small patterns in my Advent of Tessellations tutorials (https://training.gatheringfolds.com/advent). 🎁🎁

09/07/2026

Just Rhombi and Star Power are just the beginning - there's an infinite family of patterns you can fold with the Just Rhombi star and strings of rhombus twists between stars.

I'll be teaching Starbeams in my livestream tomorrow at 10am NY time (yes, it's recorded), and explaining how you can generalize from three patterns to infintely many too.

Join live to ask your questions in the chat or watch the replay to see each move as many times as you want - here's the link: https://youtube.com/live/sog494oFbzE

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