Peyote Stitch Beaded Heart Ring

 This peyote stitch ring is a little out of my design comfort zone, but it has quickly become one of my favorites. The metallic steel colored beads give it an industrial edge (steampunk) and contrast really well with the matte, red beads used to make the heart design. And the width of this ring - almost 5/8 of an inch - will make sure that people notice when you wear it!

And, of course, it can be made in one quiet afternoon or evening of beading.

 You will need two colors of delica beads for this ring, one color for the background and one for the heart.  I am using metallic dark steel for the main color and matte opaque red for the heart. I am also using Fireline beading thread and a tulip beading needle. This is one time that it will be helpful if you can work with more than an arm's length of beading thread.  I used a length of thread that spanned both arms and still had to add some extra thread - which I like to avoid if I can. My...MORE ring is a size 8.5.

Begin by picking up twelve of the steel colored beads for the first two rows. This ring uses flat even count peyote stitch. When the peyote strip is long enough, you will zip the two sides together to form the ring.

 I sometimes have trouble starting the first row of peyote stitch. One solution that I've come up with, is to separate the two rows of beads by putting another needle (no thread, just the needle) through every other bead to separate the beads into high and low beads.

This only takes a minute to do and makes it much easier to stitch the next row.

 Once the needle has been put in place, you can easily see which beads are up beads and which are down beads.

 Start even count peyote stitch like you always do by picking up a bead, skipping the first bead on the row, and stitching into the second bead. The only difference is that with the needle in place, it is extremely easy to see which beads you need to stitch and through - and super easy to stitch through them.

Once you have completed the third and fourth rows, you can remove the extra needle from the first row.  It is no longer needed (and you might poke yourself by accident!)

Before I started stitching, I roughed out the size strip of peyote that would fit on my finger. I used blue masking tape because I knew the ring would be thick which meant that I would need a larger size than I normally would. 

To approximate the size, I wrapped the blue tape around my finger and marked the spot on the tape where it was a full circle. When I get close to the length, I will try wrapping it around my finger to see if it is the right size or not.

 The bead chart for the ring is later in the slide show and there is also a word chart of the pattern available.

As with all peyote patterns, it helps to be familar with how to read an even count peyote pattern.

Lucky for me, I was stopping to take pictures of my work in progress! It helped me to notice a mistake before I got very far past it.

Here is the corrected design. Just one red bead in the wrong spot and my heart would be lopsided. 

 When my peyote strip is getting close to the right size (as measured by my masking tape), I wrap it around my finger to test it for size. Even when using Fireline, which isn't supposed to stretch, I find that these types of rings get slightly larger when you wear them. I purposely make mine fit snug.

In order to zip the sides of the peyote together, make sure there is an up bead on one side and a down bead in the same location on the other side.

 Stitch through the up beads on each side. This is like joining the teeth on a zipper, which is why it is referred to as zipping the sides together.  It can be difficult to do while keeping the thread tension tight, so let it go slightly loose and then pull snug once you are done stitching the sides together.

 The top image is the peyote pattern for the ring.  If you prefer a word chart for the peyote beaded heart ring is also available on my personal blog.

 The completed ring is a very wide band. I especially like the way the light reflects off of the steel colored beads and the matte beads of the heart recede into the background.  

And if I grow tired of the heart, I can just turn it to the back and the ring appears to be one color.  The heart is my secret.