Octahedral Cluster

This is a recent example of one of my all time favorite beaded bead designs, the Octahedral Cluster. Octahedral Clusters all have six stars, like the 6 faces of a cube.  In the beaded bead below, I colored two of the stars silver.

I colored two of the stars black and two of them gold.  Each pair lies on opposite faces.

The points of the stars come together three at a time, one star of each color. There are 8 places on the beaded bead that look just like this.  Four of them are identical, and the other four are mirror images of this.

The beaded bead has the symmetry of an octahedron, which is the same as the symmetry of a cube. Knowing this, you might wonder if this beaded bead is really an octahedron, as I told you, or maybe, it is really a cube. If we look at the largest beads (in green), there are 12 of them.

That could be useful because cubes have 12 edges, but so do octahedrons. In fact, the holes are line segments.  So if you look at the holes of the largest beads, and you extend those lines so that the lines intersect, you will form the 12 edges of an octahedron.  For that reason, I think it is an octahedron, and that is why I call it an Octahedral Cluster.

Here you can see how big it is.

Do you want it?  This beaded bead is for sale.

Do you want to make your own?  The tutorial for the Cube and Octahedral Clusters is available. If you make one of each, then you will really see the difference.