Fiberoptic Easter Egg Earrings

On the heels of creating the Fiberoptic Egg variation of the Fiberoptic Octahedron beaded bead, I've put together three pairs of earrings using this design!

Fiberoptic Easter Egg Earrings

The first is in very floral pinks and purples, with just a touch of orange and yellow:

Floral Pink and Purple Fiberoptic Egg Earrings

The next pair is in tealish-green with purple:

Spring Green and Purple Fiberoptic Egg Earrings

And the last is in silver and black, since this color combination goes with everything.

Black and Silver Fiberoptic Egg Earrings

All three pairs of earrings are available in my Etsy shop!

The Fiberoptic Egg beaded bead is a variation on the Fiberoptic Octahedron from my Fiberoptic Duo Beaded Beads pattern. This SuperDuo beading pattern is available exclusively at beadorigami.com if you'd like to make your own!

Fiberoptic "Egg" Beaded Bead

As a full-fledged science and math nerd, I like to explore many possible geometry variations in my beadwork. Along these lines, I recently wove a new variation of my Fiberoptic Duo design:

The beaded bead on the left is an original Fiberoptic Octahedron, one of two beaded beads described in my Fiberoptic Duo pattern, while the beaded bead on the right is the variation; a Fiberoptic Triangular Bipyramid.

Octahedron vs. Triangular Bipyramid

While their names sound nothing alike, the octahedron and triangular bipyramid (aka triangular dipyramid) are actually fairly closely-related polyhedra. Both have sides made up only of triangles, and when the sides in the triangular bipyramid are equilateral, these polyhedra make up two of the eight deltahedra. This is a special class of structures where all of their sides are made up of equilateral triangles.

You can think of a triangular bipyramid as two tetrahedra stacked up against each other. I also like to think of it as an octahedron that's just missing two of its sides. A triangular bipyramid has six sides instead of the eight in the octahedron, and nine edges instead of twelve.

A Geometry Variation

Because it's so closely related the octahedron, the triangular bipyramid makes for a straightforward variation on an octahedron beaded bead design. I wove this variation by skipping just one repeat of a step in the original pattern, and by substituting the seed beads in the core of the beaded bead with 15° seed beads. The tricky part is the seed bead overlay: I had to use quite a bit of thread tension to get this overlay to fit right without too much thread showing through. 

The resulting beaded bead is oval-shaped, and slightly taller than the original octahedron. Maybe it's because Easter is coming up, but it looks a little like an egg to me:

Fiberoptic Octahedron (left) and Triangular Bipyramid (right) Beaded Beads

I had some fun balancing this beaded bead on its precursor:

Even one of my tiny paper cranes got in on this balancing act:

Fiberoptic Egg Earrings

Finally, I incorporated this beaded bead and another into a pair of earrings. Aren't they cute? I'm beginning to prefer oval-shaped beaded beads for earrings compared to round ones... What do you think?

The Fiberoptic Duo Beaded Beads pattern is available exclusively at beadorigami.com if you'd like to make your own!

What's your go-to method for a beaded variation?

Easter Egg Basket

At about this same time last year I wrote up the Plum Egg beaded bead pattern, which was inspired by an origami structure of the same geometry. At the time I had the idea to make an Easter basket full of these pearly little beaded eggs, but I just didn't get around to it.

An Easter Basket of Beaded Eggs

This year I put together something resembling what I was thinking of; not a whole Easter basket's worth of Plum Eggs, but rather enough of them to fill a small glass candleholder:

These beaded beads were woven from either freshwater pearls or Swarovski crystal pearls, using either the design described in the Plum Egg pattern, or from a smaller variation of the Candy Dodecahedron design.

Would you like to make your own basket of beaded Easter eggs? The pattern for this beaded egg is available at my website!

Plum Egg Pendants in the Shop

I added several new Plum Egg beaded bead pendants to my Etsy shop (click on the photos below for more information about each piece). First up there's this simple pendant woven with 3 mm freshwater pearls:

Next is this pendant woven from two shades of pink Swarovski crystal pearls:

And another with 3 mm Swarovski crystal pearls, in white:

This one uses cream-colored Swarovski crystal pearls, in the 4 mm size for a slightly larger egg:

And finally, this one uses peach freshwater pearls, again in 4 mm:

Again, all of these pieces are available in my Etsy shop. Please note that I'll be traveling internationally from March 29 through April 11 and my Etsy shop will be on vacation mode during this time, so make sure to place your orders for Easter before March 29. However, my website will be active throughout the duration of my trip; kits ordered between March 29 and April 11 will be shipped on April 12, but patterns purchased through my website will be available for instant download (as they are now).

The Plum Egg beaded bead pattern is available exclusively at my website if you'd like to make your own basket of eggs in time for Easter.

New Pattern: Plum Egg Beaded Bead

Just in time for Easter, I finished my latest pattern, the Plum Egg beaded bead:

This design was originally inspired by the origami of Rona Gurkewitz and Bennett Arnstein, which I wrote about last spring. I wove my first beaded version out of grey freshwater pearls:

Beadweavers at the advanced beginner level should be able to tackle this pattern, and it's a great step-up for beginners who have already woven Candy Cube and Candy Dodecahedron beaded beads. (Both of these designs are available as free downloads at my website).

The Plum Egg beaded bead design works well with both 3 mm and 4 mm round beads for two different size options, and makes a nice solo pendant with freshwater pearls:

The more regularly-shaped Swarovski crystal pearls work very well too, and are a little easier to work with since the holes of these beads are bigger than those of freshwater pearls:

The Plum Egg beaded bead pattern is available exclusively at my website if you'd like to make your own basket of eggs in time for Easter. And once the fall rolls around, I think it would also make a fun football.

Infinity Egg

Continuing with the theme of egg-shaped beaded and origami polyhedra, I've completed this beaded egg using Gwen and Florence's Infinity Weave technique:

This "Infinity Egg" measures 1 1/2 inches long, and just over 1 inch wide. It's surprisingly stiff and stable for such a hollow structure. It's a little big for a pendant, but it would make a nice ornament for an Easter Egg tree.

The basic structure is the same as the truncated hexadecahedron that I've wrote about before.

The Infinity Weave is used in three patterns over at beAd Infinitum, starting with the Infinity Dodecahedron and continuing with the Donut and Prisms patterns. I guess that this egg is a variation of both the Dodecahedron and Donut patterns, but the weave is so versatile that there are an infinite number of other possible variations as well.

Happy Easter everyone!

Beaded Eggs

Last week I wrote about a truncated hexadecahedron, or "The Egg," made from modular origami units. As you might imagine, this polyhedron can also be made with beads.

This beaded egg is made from potato freshwater pearls at a diameter of just under 4 mm, and measures just over an inch long. Unlike the origami egg, the beaded egg has one bead on each edge of the polyhedron, instead of one on each corner. This means that I needed to use 72 beads, instead of 48 origami modules, to create the completed structure.

It's hollow and sturdy too, which is always a plus in my book. 

This one is made from 3 mm aventurine rounds for a slightly smaller overall structure.

Finally, I used irregularly-shaped potato pearls at a size of about 5 mm for this beaded egg. The result is a little bit irregular but it's an interesting effect.

Do you enjoy seasonal beadwork for the springtime? 

Origami Interlude: "The Egg"

Continuing with the themes of springtime and the rebirth that comes with it, today I thought I'd share some origami that I've had kicking around for a while. The modular unit used for this piece is the triangular gyroscope module by Rona Gurkewitz and Bennett Arnstein, which is made out of paper cut into an equilateral triangle. Multiple units can be pieced together to make a number of polyhedra, particularly structures including 5- and 6-sided faces, including the dodecahedron, truncated octahedron, and truncated icosahedron, with each unit sitting on an edge of the polyhedron. However, one of the more unique examples shown in Gurkewitz and Arnstein's books is the truncated hexadecahedron, fittingly referred to as "The Egg."

"The Egg" is made from 16 hexagons, 8 pentagons, and 2 squares. You can think of it as a soccer ball that's lost about 1/5 of its faces, and wrapped itself up to compensate. While it certainly has symmetry, it's considered an irregular polyhedron because the shapes that make up this polyhedron are not regular, meaning that the edges of each face have slightly different lengths. 

The great thing about origami, and beads too, is that we can can still construct such almost-regular polyhedra from regularly-shaped modules. The Egg uses a total of 48 triangular gyroscope modules, and I for one can't tell that the finished structure is irregular.

Twenty modules, made from foil paper, make a shiny little dodecahedron.

What's your favorite kind of egg? Origami? Beaded? Fabergé? Chicken?