Video:How to Do Flat Even-Count Peyote Stitch

Transcript:How to Do Flat Even-Count Peyote Stitch

Hi, I'm Melissa Shippee, owner of MGS Designs. I'm here today with About.com to show you how to do flat even-count peyote stitch.

Beading Tools for Flat Even-Count Peyote Stitch

To do this you're going to need a beading needle, beading thread, and seed beads. Cylinder beads are the preferred bead when doing peyote stitch because of their cylindrical shape.

How to Start Flat Even-Count Peyote Stitch

First, you're going to pick up your first row of beads, according to your pattern. In this case I'm going to pick up six beads. With the even count peyote stitch you're always going to be picking up an even number of beads to start. I'm going to pick up a bead, skip over the last bead that I picked up, and stitch through the next one, then pull the thread tight. I'm going to repeat this, picking up a bead, skipping over a bead, and stitching through the next bead. And again I'm going to repeat this step, skipping over a bead, and stitching through the next bead.

How to Add Rows to Flat Even-Count Peyote Stitch

So I've completed my first peyote stitch row worked off of the initial row of beads that I picked up. The next row is worked in the opposite direction of the previous row. Pick up a bead, and stitch through the next up-bead. Then I repeat until I get to the end of the row. Then I work on the next row in the opposite direction. Pick up a bead, stitch through the last bead added. Some people call this stitching in the ditch, I'm adding a bead into the ditches along the last row. So you just keep going, stitching the rows in the opposite directions from the last. The thread is traveling through the peyote stitch down each row and back along the next row in an alternating pattern.

And that's how to do even-count peyote stitch. Thank you for watching. To learn more, please visit About.com