Wonder and Whimsy May 2025 Reveal: Diamond Tessellations, Part 1

 Guess what day it is? That’s right: it’s reveal day!

This month’s challenge was incredibly inspiring. For such a simple inspiration (literally just the back of a YMCA chair), I had an incredible surge of ideas. So many, in fact, that I’m going to break this reveal up into a few different blog posts over the course of today and tomorrow. Hopefully you don’t mind… I just thought that might be the best way to show off what I made.

And now, without any further ado, let’s get started!

As a reminder, here is the inspiration chair in question:

...and here is a close-up of the back:

Such cool diamond tessellations!

Now, when I saw the chair, I immediately thought of the two-holed Czech glass beads called GemDuos. They look like this:

Not my picture! This photo is from Beadaholique.

See? They are exactly the same shape as the little diamond elements you see in the chair!

However, I had never used them before. I was not incredibly familiar with how to work with two-holed beads—specifically, the best thread paths to use with them. Just a little bit of playing around showed me that following someone else’s instructions might be helpful, at least to start.

So I actually went online and found three different tutorials/kits that I wanted to try. 

The first two things I made were inspired by this particular pattern you can see in the chair:

For the first piece, I used this tutorial for the “Gina” bracelet, developed by Yuliya Abelovich. I found it on Etsy; her store name is WonderfulJewelryShop. 

This is the final result:

See? It's just like in the chair! Isn't that neat?

I will say that, since this is the very first piece I made for this challenge--and the very first thing I've made with GemDuos ever--it is a little sloppy. If I were to do it again, I would definitely adjust my tension and make it a little tighter. While I was making it, I thought it was tight, but more trial and error has shown me that I could do better.

Still, not bad for my first time playing with these cool new beads! I'm pretty dang pleased.

For the second piece inspired by this particular design element, I used a kit put together by Danielle Wickes for her Polonia Bracelet. (I think I may have actually purchased the last kit; the directions can be seen here.) I fell in love, and immediately wanted to try it. 

It was quick to put together, and I honestly love the result:

Aren't those two-colored GemDuos fun? And I am completely enamored with those golden beads... I definitely want to play with this simple starburst more!

Thank you to Danielle for putting together such a lovely kit! 

Now, that starburst is the first design that I saw when I looked at the chair... but it's definitely not the last. 

The second pattern that I was inspired by was this one:

The tutorial I found to match this was from Potomac Beads… specifically the Floral Quartet bracelet tutorial (found here). I think it matches pretty perfectly:

I particularly like the bead frames, which very much remind me very much of the same frame-shapes you see on the chair. I found them on PotomacBeads, and they were pretty easy to use. I will definitely be using them again!

Now, those three pieces alone would be enough for this reveal. However, I have one more that I want to share that fits the "used a pattern or tutorial from someone else" criteria.

You see, while I was rooting around, looking for tutorials, I also found this diamond-inspired peyote pattern from Beadaholique. It was odd count peyote, which is something I’ve been wanting to try, so I gave it a whirl. After all, it features diamonds—and, in this challenge, repeated diamond patterns are the star of the show!

Here is how it turned out:

Oh, and the colors? Since this whole thing was YMCA-inspired, I decided to make this pattern in the colors of the Greater Cincinnati YMCA.

Odd count peyote was not nearly as intimidating as I thought it would be... in fact, after doing one section of the bracelet I didn't even need the pattern anymore. I love the way that Miyuki delicas just click into place, so I know for a fact I'll be doing more!

So, ta-da! Those are the pieces I made for Part 1 of this reveal. Those are all things that I made using other people’s patterns. For the next part of the reveal, you get to see what I made when I took my new tool set and made up my own patterns! Wheee!

Thanks so much for stopping by... keep an eye out for Part 2!

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In case you’re interested, now that they're all posted, here are all three parts of this reveal:

Part 1 (you are here)

Part 2

Part 3