Advent of Tess has become a beloved holiday tradition, with a new mini tessellation tutorial released every day from December 1 through Christmas Day. The 2023 patterns were completely new, and they introduced trapezoid twists, too.
These patterns start out accessible to any folder and progressively introduce new twists and ideas until you arrive at advanced skills like open rhombus twists, overlapping twists, trapezoid twists and flagstone techniques. The challenge is free to join.
There was a lot more focus this year on the alternate endings possible after a given mini tessellation start, with short videos on these endings accompanying each tutorial.
When you sign up for Advent of Tess, you’ll have access to all the tutorials immediately and also get daily reminders for each of the 25 days of the challenge. You can sign up at any time and take however long you like to finish, and there’s no such thing as “too late.”
You’ll be joining hundreds of origami folders around the world in trying out or revisiting tessellation techniques and expanding the possibilities you can see in a single sheet of paper.
All the grids used in Advent of Tess are exactly the same — 16 divisions on a hexagon, parallel to the edges of the paper — and I walk you through how to cut out a hexagon and fold that grid in the welcome video of the challenge.
If you’d like to use my favorite papers and tools, you can find them on my website: a full paper pack including tools, a pack of just the paper or an ebook of crease patterns with more repeats of the 25 challenge pieces plus 31 alternate endings. The ebook is also available through The Source.