Tubular Peyote: Deceptively Simple. Or Is It? With Pictures

At the aforementioned Pasadena Bead Show on August 1, I saw some work done by the President and Vice President of the LA Bead Group. Sorry, don't know their official name. They had made some tubular peyote neck rings and the work was so tight and fine that the rings were nearly rigid. Either that or they had wire inside. The bead weaving was still very tight, though.  Beautiful. Admirable. Something to aspire to.

I wanted to try something similar. So I tried, four times, to start a tubular peyote tube with a lovely golden 15/0 seed bead. Each time I missed my mark on where to step up, and so the entire tube fell into devastation. Clipped it apart, tried again.

On try number 5, I got sick of it and worked each successive round in a different color, one round gold, one round a lovely fuschia purple. This gave the effect of stripes. Not what I wanted, but at least the tube was working. Once I had the tube established, I switched back to all gold. 

For some reason, when starting ANY peyote project, I struggle with the first three rows or rounds, sometimes a few more. This may be common, I'm not sure. I haven't taken and classes to watch anyone else do it, and any online video tutorials make it all look soooo easy. But I really hate that my first rounds are loose and somehow I can never get them as tight as the later work.

The first picture is of the initial tube, with stripes, and then, where I transitioned over to all-gold.  The tube is in two parts because I ended the thread badly without a proper knot, and it just fell into two parts! But I kept going on part 2, first weaving in a purple diamond, then starting a purple spiral to mark where to step up each round.  The picture is hard to see because the gold is so sparkly. 

The second picture is of my first Cellini spiral, from an article in the new Bead & Button, the Cellini Sampler, by Anna Elizabeth Draeger.  While it is a very straightforward tubular peyote stitch, the variation in the size of the beads makes it spiral. With other types of spirals, you have to increase & decrease to get the spiral, but with this one, it's super easy. I figured out the secret is that whatever bead you just sewed through, that's what you pick up. If you just sewed through a color B, pick up a B. If it's a D, pick up a D. And so on. So you always know exactly where you are. 

You would think that the straight tubular peyote would be as simple. For me, it's not. From one end of a round to the other, even if each round is only 5 or 6 beads, I can't count as my mind wanders to other thoughts. And there I am, wondering where the heck I am.

Oh, to be such an expert that starting and continuing on tubular peyote is easy!