A Cellini Rick Rack Ninja Star

 A heck of a name for a heck of a pattern:

The pattern is Sarah Cryer's, apparently the result of several techniques mashed together, and I'm not going to lie -- it was a challenging thing to make. The pattern itself is quite logical, and it's easy enough to understand what to do, but actually getting the beads to behave was a fiddly, frustrating process. I think part of the problem (for me at least) was having each round start at an inner point, which meant I had to step up and keep the work from twisting while also positioning the beads correctly and maintaining adequate tension for the decrease.  

Once the first four rows were established, the star was much easier to manage. Which is why Cryer recommends pausing after row four to create a "caster star" off the original base -- another four rows which are then removed from the base and left that way, from which to create new stars. The advantage is that the beads are all in place already, making it easy to "continue" beading with new thread and different beads for the new star (the first three rows of peyote are always the most difficult).

So, I tried that, and ended up with a twisted mess, even though my base was not twisted or a mess:

But I really, really want to make more stars! So after I finished, I started a new one with 4 rows to serve as my casting model. At Cryer's suggestion, I connected the inner points together with some extra beads to make it even easier to work with:

I am seriously excited to do this again; I plan to make a Christmas ornament, a larger one by sizing up each of the beads to 11s, 8s, and 6s.