One of These Wednesdays...

Actually, it's this Wednesday... I promised several of the Witches that I would teach them how to do the Peyote Stitch beading....I have to gather materials, examples and tools to show them.  No time like the present.

This is "how not to treat your beading".  It's really the drawer where I save all of my unfinished pieces and failures.  I don't throw the failures away.  They remind me not to do the same thing twice. 

There are some pieces in the pile that just need to be finished.  I should put them somewhere else, but they are safe here and I know where to find them.

I am taking some finished examples of what you can do with just one stitch.  Peyote is my favorite.  It can be worked flat or in the round.

You can find instructions all over the net, so I don't try to teach it on the blog.  I have shown a few pieces on the blog in mini, but the things that I am going to take along is all big.

Th zigzag bracelet in front of Tessie is the very first think I tried...Long, Long Ago....

You can make just about any kind of jewelry with it.  Tessie's crown(my ring, if I ever get it back) is tubular peyote with loops added to the edge.

The pencil standing to the left of her is what I am going to teach Wednesday.  It looks complicated, but is one of the simplest patterns to do.

Here are a bunch of watches and bracelets....All the same stitch...Just different patterns.

The watches are started around the pins that usually hold the band in place and worked out in both directions from there.

The little blue piece second from the left is a handy dandy measuring stick.  Each of the segments is 1/2"  It can be attached to a key chain or a purse strap with a jump ring.

The five on the right are patterns from North Africa that I found in a rug book.  The graphs for the design were laid out like brick work...That is how the peyote stitch is structured.  One brick at a time.

The white velour blanket that you see behind Tessie is for beading mats.  I bought one years ago, specifically for that purpose.  They were selling beading mats on beading websites that were no more than 12" square for twenty dollars....I got the whole blanket for fifteen...When I teach a class, nobody ever comes with a mat in hand...I have given quite a few away and still have 3/4 of the blanket left.

The purpose is to keep the beads from rolling around while you work...and it does work.

I will get back to the Clockwork cottage later today, but I probably won't feel like blogging later, so I will save the living room patching for tomorrow.

See you then.  Back to the bead work.