Welcome back to Bead Weaving 101 – Peyote Basics. Today I want to talk to you about shaping Flat Peyote bead work.
Diagonal Peyote is an example of shaped flat bead work and the Russian Leaf is a great example of diagonal peyote.
Let’s get right into the techniques.
In order to create diagonal peyote bead work, we first need to understand how to increase and decrease the bead work.
Understanding how to increase and decrease in Even and Odd Count peyote will add a brand new creative tool to your bead weaving skill-set.
If you need additional help with Flat Peyote, I have the Bead Weaving Basics – Flat Peyote Stitch PDF – 3 Techniques – Even Count, Odd Count and Circular Peyote.
available for a few dollars in The Alluring Bead Boutique Shop. Check out all my Technique Guides, with Step by Step photos and written instructions.
Increasing Even Count Peyote
I have a small piece of Flat Even Count Peyote bead work.
I am going to do an increase by one bead on the edge of the bead work.
I begin by picking up 2 beads and letting them drop to the bead work.
Next we need to line the 2 new beads up beside each other.
Using Ladder stitch – pass the needle up through the first bead you picked up (the one closest the the bead work.)
Pull through and line the beads up. Slide them down to the bead work if needed.
Pass down through the second bead, back in the direction of the base bead work.
Complete the row as normal with peyote stitch.
Pick up a bead and pass through the next up-bead.
If your design calls for an increase on both edges, repeat the steps above to increase the bead work on the opposite edge.
Increasing on both edges by one bead, your bead work will remain Even Count.
If you are only increasing the first edge, when you will complete the rest of the section using Odd Count Peyote as we increased the even count bead work by one bead to an odd number.
Increasing Odd Count Peyote
In Odd Count Peyote every other row will add an even number of beads to the bead work.
At the end of the even row, you simply increase by one as shown above.
On the row that has an odd number of beads, work to the edge and add the last bead for the row but do not do the turn around.
See Odd Count Flat Peyote.
Use the technique above to increase the bead work.
When you pass down the second bead added in the increase, push through the next bead as shown.
Continue on working Odd Count Peyote, using the turn around method as necessary.
Now I will show you how to decrease the bead work.
Decreasing Peyote
Here is the diagram from The 2019 Bead Stitching Handbook that shows the increases and decreases we have been talking about.
I found the Odd Peyote Increase to be confounding. As you can see from the diagram, there doesn’t appear to be an increase on the edge of the bead work. So for now just please look at the decreases, which are Figures 2 and 4.
These instructions demonstrate how to decrease the bead work by one bead on each type of flat peyote bead work.
It is interesting to note the use of the thread bridge on the outer edge, as opposed to using the sew around methods.
If you only decrease on one edge of the Odd Count Peyote, you will continue on using the Even Count Peyote technique.
I hope that I haven’t totally confused you by this point. I was pretty confused at first, but once I put these techniques into practice on a Diagonal Peyote project, I was able to totally get the concepts.
So let’s do that now.
Diagonal Peyote ~ The Russian Leaf
In this video, you will see the increase and decrease in action.
Not only will you see the basics of Diagonal Peyote, but also learn a little bit about reading Peyote patterns.
Special Note: In the video below, you will learn to decrease and increase.
The 15/0 beads are accent beads so the technique is slightly different because of the addition of an accent bead.
I hope the video clears the fog on increasing and decreasing flat peyote bead work for you.
In the next post, we will talk about Stitch in a Ditch before we move on to Circular Peyote and then Tubular Peyote.
Have a great day and thank you for stopping by.