Snowflake fuse bead pattern

About this design

Real snowflakes have six arms, but a square pegboard handles eight-fold symmetry much more cleanly, so this design has four long arms and four short diagonal ones. Each long arm has a Robin’s Egg spine edged in White, two pairs of side branches and a blunt tip. The short arms are White steps ending in two Robin’s Egg beads, and the centre is a Sky diamond around a single white bead. Instead of black, the outline is Dark Blue, which keeps the whole piece looking icy.

Bead counts: 27 White, 144 Dark Blue, 52 Robin’s Egg and 16 Sky.

Placing the beads

The flake is 27 × 27, centred on a large square pegboard with one free row on every side. Find the middle peg (the 15th along and the 15th down) and place the centre bead there first. Then build one arm at a time and copy it to the other three, turning the board as you go; it is much easier to spot a mistake when you compare arms. The outline goes on last.

Ironing and finishing

This one is rated 3 because of the many thin branches. An adult should iron it with medium heat, working evenly across the whole flake so the branch tips fuse as well as the centre. Iron the back too, then cool it flat under a heavy book. The finished ornament is about 13.5 × 13.5 cm. A loop of fishing line or thin ribbon through an outline bead at one tip lets it hang in a window, where the white and blue look bright against the light.

Colour plan

Perler 80-19001 White does the most work, 47% of the 401 beads, followed by Perler 80-19008 Dark Blue at 36%. Every colour is used at least 16 times, so there are no tiny one-off details to hunt for. 45% of the grid is left empty.

Working notes

All the beads touch along a full side, so it irons into one solid piece.