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Hey Allegra, I love the new layout! It looks really good. The smaller pictures on the home page are really nice, have you thought about resizing each of the pages pictures? I know that is probably a lot of work but it does look really nice that way.
I just got back from Oregon and got the kids started in school this week plus my husband started a new job so I have not even had a chance to play with inkscape. Hopefully things will settle down so I can get back to my beading. I was hoping to get something done on my vacation but it seemed like we were busy with something dawn to dusk!
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Hi Jax!!! I'm so glad you're back. The site has felt so lonely since you, Tess, and Laura seem to have left it. I don't know what happened to Laura as she has not replied to my emails in weeks. I assume she has another chest infection. I don't know where Tess is, maybe on vacation. So I'm glad you're back.
As for using thumbnail pictures in the pattern galleries, that is indeed my grand master plan. But I must first create pages for each and every picture so that you can click on the thumbnail and get to the bigger picture. Or else all I will accomplish is replace big pictures with little ones, and that wouldn't be very good! So I'm working on it, but of course, there's still all these requests for new patterns that I can't seem to keep up with, and I'm also trying to put together a visitor's pattern gallery so visitors can submit patterns.
Speaking of which, I was going to post your snowflake pattern but I realized that I don't have a picture of your actual snowflake. I need to put a picture of it as the thumbnail for the pattern in the pattern gallery, and then as the front picture on the pattern page. So could you email me a picture of your finished snowflake?
I tried to put up a drop-down menu as my link menu (my horizontal blue bar under the title, which has changed if you've noticed!! now I'm 3dbeading.com hehe), but it turned out very challenging because firefox displays the drop-down menu very well, but internet explorer not so much. Which is the story of the internet. Internet explorer is the thorn in every webmaster's side. And 85% of internet users use it. .... anyways, enough venting. The reason I wanted a drop-down menu is to save space to put up more links (ie, a link to the visitor's gallery, and one day the beader matchmaker system). So I don't know where to put a link to the visitor's gallery yet. Maybe along the side or on the main page. Or I could probably squish it in there, as there's a bit of room. I could probably fit in "Guest Patterns", and if not, I can always reduce the font size. LOL! I'm thinking at Christmas break I will figure out the drop-down menus.
I'm glad your trip went well! Who cares that you haven't gotten to playing with Inkscape yet. You should just sit back and enjoy, and not rush yourself. Anyway, now you can follow my official Inkscape tutorial because I've posted it on the main page! The screenshots are nicely placed where needed in the text. Have fun with it and let me know how it goes! I hope you'll contribute some peyote stitch patterns. I just started a flat peyote piece just to try peyote stitch, and it's not going well at all. It's not flat!! It's all bumpy, and the side is not straight, it's all wavy. It's supposed to be straight! Do you have that problem? How do you keep flat peyote stitch from going all crooked on you?
Hope to hear from you! And hope you subscribe to the newsletter!! I just started it! (I announced the heart pattern yesterday)
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Allegra, I'm here! I've not left you! 
I've been in hospital for weeks and weeks so they've let me come home for the day today and the same tomorrow. Then back in Sunday night for the week. 
I will email you either later today or tomorrow. 
I'm loving the new layout! And you've put some new patterns up since I've been gone, and used the new technique. I can't wait to have a go using the Inkscape program you found!
Chat soon and 'hey' to everyone else too. xxx
Laura xxx
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Oh I'm so glad you're okay Laura!! You're okay right? I got more and more worried as time passed... Don't even worry about the diagrams, just get well so you can come back home! You've already helped me immensely with your advice and guidance. My "factory" is churning out patterns much more efficiently now. LOL!
As another fun discovery though, I've stumbled upon a free software called Google Sketch Up (I didn't even know google made software before this), which is basically a 3D modeling software. So that means that your diagram is actually 3D as you draw it in the program, and you can use the rotation tool to rotate your "camera" around your model (rather than rotation in Photoshop or Inkscape, where you rotate the object, not yourself around the object). So this has potential for drawing 3D beading diagrams in that program! Hehe, I should probably just pick a method and stick to it (like after I bothered to write a 6-page Inkscape tutorial), but you've created a monster!
Inkscape is so fun and easy to use! I highly recommend using it instead of Photoshop. The functions are very user-friendly, and it's designed for this sort of use. Hope to hear more from you!!
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I am glad you are still there too Laura, I will keep you in my thoughts over the next week! My kids just looked at me funny cuz I was hooting and hollering when I read the part about the google software, lol. I can't wait to try that too! The kids being in school on my days off will hopefully mean that I get to actually finish some things up soon! I will send you pictures of my earrings now, I actually thought about doing that when I sent the pattern and for the life of me can't figure out now why I didn't!
I feel your pain too with the internet explorer. We use it at work and I hate it. I tried firefox at home when I got my new computer in January and explorer would not pull up half the time. I made the switch and I will never go back!
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Opps forgot to about your peyote question. Be sure you are using uniform beads, Japanese seed beads are supposedly more uniform then Czech seed beads but all I have ever used is Japanese so I am biased and I love them. ( I hear the Czech are really great for netting tho). If you get cheaper beads, make sure they are all the same size, the beading term is culling (removing the odd sizes/ imperfect beads). I get mine from the local bead store or from fire mountain gems (I love the dynamites and they get cheaper the more you buy). The more uniform the beads are, the straighter your edges will be.
As for the waves, I believe this is because of your tension. If you are too tight, or if you're tension is unequal, it will make that wavy shape. I made a ton of bracelets four rows wide when i started with peyote because thats what my neighbor taught me. They do make great gifts for kids, mine love to raid my stash and its cool cuz they run around the neighbor hood saying look what my mommy made me! It really helped with my tension to have all that practice when I moved on to bigger pieces and the bracelets work up really quick once you get the hang of it.
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I tried it again and it's going much better this time! I've got it straight as an arrow. LOL. What I did was follow the advice of that animated peyote stitch tutorial you sent me the link for a long time ago. They recommended to string a piece of thin wire through all the beads of the 2nd row to separate them from the beads of the first row, and to do this before adding any of the beads of the third row. This helped immensely, as before my fishing line was getting all twisted over itself as I added the beads of the third row. What I did was string the wire through every other bead (ie, the beads making up the "2nd row"). Then I taped both ends of the wire down to the table to keep the wire straight. Then I straightened out all the beads on it, and taped the beads down in sections as I got them straight. Then I slowly undid the tap over the beads of the 2nd row bit by bit as I added the beads of the third row. It worked out great. The problem was that I was doing a segment of peyote stitch 30 beads long. You were saying to start with 4 bead long segments, hehe. I'm trying to wrap a pen shaft with beads and write my name in it. Hehehe. I could have done tubular peyote stitch I guess, but my pattern says to do it flat and then wrap it around the pen, then tie the two edges together.
As for culling, I always cull! It saves buying expensive beads because even with irregular beads, if you buy enough of them (and they come in bags of thousands of seed beads) you'll find more than enough good ones. And there are no bad ones really, you just have to group them together, the long ones with the long ones, and the short ones with the short ones.
Thanks for the advice on tightness. That really helped. I read on some website that you're supposed to make it as tight as you can possibly pull on the fishing line. So that's what I had been doing (yanking on the fishing line as hard as I could after adding each bead, lol).
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I am glad it worked for you! I agree with your pattern that it is much easier to do the flat then zip them up. I did a name tag for my stethoscope and for two of my classmates and it is much easier than trying to work around the piece. I also prefer the orientation of the writing when you do it this was compared to the tubular too. I suggested the four piece width because I didn't know you were working on something. I should have known by now that you are more ambitious than that!
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Hahaha, yes, but I didn't know at the time that the length made such a huge difference in the difficulty level, LOL! Oh well, always up for a challenge. And hey, now that I have learned something, I can share it with everyone else by taking a few pictures of my "peyote stitch method" and posting it in my techniques section, which is beginning to feel like the abandoned and forgotten part of this site. LOL!
I do remember seeing a picture of your stethoscope name tag in your gallery page. I loved it! Remember I asked you to make a pattern out of it? LOL! I loved the cute borders on it too. My pattern has no borders on it LOL. Teach us! 
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LOL ok ok I will make a pattern for them. I worked yesterday and get to take another day off this week to make up for it so I have big plans for my 3 day weekend! I still have it on a transparency with a peyote graph printed on it somewhere. I like doing the peyote patterns with markers on transparencies cuz they are easy to erase and once I get it how I like it, I take it to work and photocopy it on the color copier. I need a new printer at home so I am going to get one that is a scanner to so I can upload them and have them on the computer. Until then, I will just have to deal with manually making them on the computer. It will give me a chance to play with inkscape.
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Oh my gosh Jax, that is pretty brilliant. Wow, I would have never thought of doing that. You could even get one of those washable white boards, which are getting more and more popular these days because college students like the post them on their dorm room doors to let hallway goers know what is going on inside (ie, do not disturb).
Speaking of easily erasable patterns though, did you know there is a free software that lets you draw peyote stitch patterns (and is specifically designed for that). The address is here:
The program is free and it's specifically for designing peyote stitch patterns (even from pictures), and you can export your pattern as an image file for easy web viewing. The only reason I didn't use this software is because it doesn't do right angle weave, only peyote and similar stitches, so it is useless for basically all the beading patterns on this site right now. LOL! But since you are the peyote stitch master, you can use it!
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I tried the white board and kept erasing my lines. I suppose I could us a permanent marker. I do like the fact that I can just throw the transparency in my files if thats as far as I want to go with it. The other cool thing about the transparency is that I can lay it over any picture and color away! Or run it thru the copier that way and it works pretty well too. And you are by far the queen of finding free programs! I have been using the free version of bead tool but being free, it is very limited. Add another item to my to download and learn list!
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Haha, how foolish I was to question the peyote master. That is actually quite smart to superimpose the transparency over an image and draw. You're so smart, no wonder you are a nurse. I bet nurses have to be very inventive in their daily work because they never know what to expect and have to deal with.
I have several questions about peyote stitch for you!! Okay, my formerly straight work is now kind of bending in one direction (ie, one of the two blunt edges is still straight, but the other edge is becoming a diagonal line pointing outwards, and each successive new row I add is moving further and further in that direction). The serrated edges look fine still. Do you think it's the beads? I'm using round seed beads. I just saw an awesome free video on a site called beaducation.com that teaches about the different types of seed beads, and apparently there are cylindrical seed beads, and they work better than round seed beads because they snap into place like a jigsaw puzzle. They also brought up a number of other points in the video, which I was hoping you may be able to clarify for me
First of all, they mentioned that you are supposed to wax the thread before starting by getting a candle and dragging the thread along the edge of the candle (or other wax), and this "conditions" the thread. I don't even know what they mean by that. Is that important? I've never done that or even heard of it! Does it make it easier to get through the bead holes? I've noticed that I have extreme difficulty getting the fishing line through the beads when I have passed through them several times before. Does it help with that? Do you think it would also be effective for fishing line? I've never used beading thread, only fishing line. Speaking of which, do you think some of my unevenness might be because I use fishing line instead of thread to do my peyote stitch? It is harder to pull tight than thread, that's for sure. It kind of fights against you a bit. It's great for right angle weave, but peyote stitch is a whole new ballgame for me and I am totally naive.
Another thing the video mentioned was the use of very thin needles (she mentioned getting a size 12 needle) to pull the thread through the beads and to pick up new beads with. I've never used a needle before, only my hands. None of my sewing needles go through my beads because the needles are too fat. Is it easier with a needle? It looked like she was having a breeze picking up the beads with the needle. It's a pain in the butt picking them up by hand one by one LOL.
She also mentioned beading on a felt surface because the beads won't roll around. Man, these people are so clever. I always find myself beading on hard wood, metal, or glass surfaces and my beads always escape me. LOL!
The last thing of interest she mentioned in the video is that she recommended to tie a knot at the end of the first two rows, between the two ends of the thread, before continuing onwards. She said it keeps the beads tight. Do you think because I didn't do this, I am having problems now? Do you do it?
Another question I had was about running out of string. I am currently in this predicament, with about 3 inches left to go. Am I dead in the water or do I have a fighting chance? I know with weaving friendship bracelets, if you run out of string, you are finished. LOL! With right angle weave, what I usually do is tie several knots between the two ends of the fishing line, then thread through several more beads and cut the threads, and insert a new thread into the piece. But with my peyote stitch piece, the two ends of the fishing line are nowhere near each other, which would make tying a knot quite difficult. So I don't know what to do. Also, how would you insert the new thread (if it's possible)?
One person posted on a website somewhere that they were able to peyote stitch 2 rows at a time to save time. They didn't mention how. Another person mentioned doing odd-count peyote stitch using both ends of the thread instead of just one, and this avoids the whole odd-count peyote stitch predicament, which apparently has many methods of working around. Like one website mentioned doing a figure 8 around the last few beads in the row, another website mentioned doing some ugly tying and looping through the thread, but this amasses thread on one side of the model. The person who suggested using both ends of the thread said to exchange which thread you are working with. Ie, stitch rows 1 and 2 with the first end of the thread, then when you get to the predicament, switch threads, and keep going with the other end of the thread. Then do the next two rows, and when you end up back at the predicament end of the peyote piece, switch threads again. What do you do?
Okay I think that covers all my questions for now. LOL! Oh, do you know how to do 3-D models with peyote stitch?
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You know what I just noticed? The 3D peyote hello kitty on the animals page is not done using cylindrical beads, but round beads. And they are clearly quite uneven beads. Yet the pattern as a whole looks quite uniform. So what is wrong with me!?! LOL, I can't seem to get it right.
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Hey Jax, I know you like free good software, so I thought I'd let you know that google just released a new free software called Google Chrome, which is a browser. It's another attempt at kicking Internet Explorer out of the browser market. It's supposed to be even better than firefox. I'm trying it out right now (I'm typing this in google chrome hehe). It's obviously light years ahead of IE, but it doesn't take much to do that. The bar wasn't set very high by IE in terms of browser standards. LOL!
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Master? HaHa I am still a complete novice! But I will try to answer as many of your questions as I can, now that I printed your post so I don't forget anything and installed chrome, and so far so good! OK here we go.
Start by sending me/posting a pic of your piece. I think maybe it could be the round beads but I think seeing it will help me figure it out for sure.
I use Nymo size 00 for all my work. It is a nylon beading thread, there are tons of brands out there but this is what I started with and I love it. You can order this on most bead supply sights and bead stores should carry it. I have not seen it at any of the craft stores here. I double it and use it with a size 10 or 12 beading needle, these you should be able to get in a general craft store back by the beads. It makes a huge difference on how easy it is to pick up the beads. I use beeswax from the bead store, the stuff my craft store carries is awful. I run the thread thru it to keep it together while I am beading, then run it between my nail and finger to pull off any excess.
There is something else called thread heaven that repels the thread and is supposed to keep it from tangling on itself but I have not tried that either.
I burn the end with a lighter (they have this cool thing called a thread zapper or something that does this too, much easier than a lighter from what I hear) to create a small ball and I make sure with the first bead that it will not pull thru. Some patterns say to use a stop bead, run your thread thru a small bead several times and leave a 6 inch tail to weave back in later when you are done but I don't like having that string hanging there while I work.
I rarely tie knots in any of my work, I weave thru, cut then burn the end when I finish my piece or when I am running low on thread. If I need to add more thread I get a new piece, wax it burn the end, weave thru a few beads in a circle following the natural path and come out where I left off and continue.
I know some people swear by fireline (some brand of fishing line) but I don't know if you should use wax with it or if it would melt with a lighter like the nylon does. I have not tried it but from what you say about it working good with RAW, I am gonna go try it cuz I have a terrible time with that stitch and maybe it is my choice of thread.
I don't use felt either. I prefer to bead on a plastic yogurt lid. It keeps the beads from rolling away because of the lip, it is easier to pour into my containers because it is flexible and I like having the lip of the lid to get the bead on the needle. I can use one for each color without mixing them or taking up too much space.
The peyote two rows at a time is in an old bead and button magazine that my Mom in law found for me while I was in Oregon, still on my to do list to try. Looks like it would be best for solid colors till you get the hang of it. It appears that you place all the beads on for two rows like you do for the first to rows, come back backwards thru the last bead and weave them in back towards you. Like I said, on my to do list.
Odd count is harder than even count. I do a funky figure 8 that works fairly well. I will try to document it for you and send it too you. I have never tried two threads for peyote, I would even begin to know how to start that!
I have made a butterfly in peyote for my sister, well the body was a tube really then the wings were done in brick stitch. I have not tried anything else. Well I can't say that, I decided to enter the fire mountain gems beading contest for next year and I am wanting to do an ocean/beach side scene, I am working on the wave now. I just started it the other night and am not even sure if it will work. Its 150 beads wide so it is slow going. If it is successful, I will be doing a few other beachy items to join the wave.
I think I just need to sit down and play and see what I come up with. I just hate to put so much time into something then have nothing to show.
Did I answer all your questions?
Oh and I noticed the google chrome doesn't have the option to change your misspelled words, thats a bummer. It is just underlining mine and when I try to click to fix nothing happens. Hmmmm.
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Hahaha, yes, I have since gone back to Firefox myself. The deal-breaker for me was that for some odd reason (I don't know if it's a glitch in Chrome or my own computer), my laptop's scrolling bar (on the touch pad, there is a bar on the very right that you can drag up and down with your finger and it scrolls the page) didn't work in Google Chrome. I don't know why but it works in Firefox. I always assumed that it would automatically work in any program, but now I'm thinking maybe each and every program must enable it to work in their program window. I think Chrome is a work in progress. It's only just been released for the first time ever yesterday in fact. LOL! Apparently, the makers of Firefox are quite surprised by this move by Google because Google is Firefox's biggest financial contributor (because they have a common enemy, Microsoft). Quite frankly, I think Google should have just made contributions to help make Firefox work better, rather than competing against them. But anyways.... We'll just have to wait and see where this browser war goes hehehe. Don't worry about Google Sketch Up being a work in progress. That is quite an established 3D modeling software that is now in version 6.
Hehe, back to beading. That's a great idea for me to send you a picture of my peyote work. I can send you a picture of what is left of my old one too (I've been slowly gutting it to contribute the beads to my new piece, but there is still a few rows left on it. You can see that it is shaped like the Hunchback of Notre Dame). That's so funny that you have difficulty with right angle weave, because I was just thinking that peyote stitch is so much harder than right angle weave. I guess it's a matter of perspective. Right angle weave is conceptually hard because you have to think in terms of two strings (or technically two ends of the same string). But in practice, it's very easy to get it to look like it should because you can easily pull the beads tightly after every bead circle, because you have both ends of the fishing line to pull on, and you can pull as hard as you want. Peyote stitch is theoretically easier because it's the same motion over and over and you are only dealing with one string (or end of string). But it's so hard to get it to look the way it should because of tightness and evenness issues. And right angle weave is far more forgiving in terms of beads used. You can use very odd and uneven beads in a right angle weave piece without problems. LOL! I will definitely send you a picture of my piece for you to "assess" it.
Today I bought beading wire at my craft store. I thought maybe it would be easier for peyote stitch than fishing line because it conforms to the shape you give it unlike fishing line. But it was much worse. It was conforming too much to my motions and getting all twisted out of shape. I haven't seen any nylon thread. I have concerns about nylon though. I have held nylon string in my hands before, and was able to easily break it by pulling with mild strength. You have to have very mighty muscles indeed to break fishing line by mere pulling. Fishing line can break eventually, but only after a year or two of constant wear and tear. So I try to alternate what pieces I wear on a day to day basis. As for using fireline brand, I'm fine with my cheap brand LOL. I use a brand called Red Wolf. It's got a reputation for being the "inexpensive" brand. I got it at my hardware store (called Canadian Tire). It was 1000 yards of fishing line for $3.97. I don't think I will ever get through 1000 yards in my lifetime. I'm still working through it two years later with no end in sight. I can understand why the hardware store sells fishing line in such huge quantities. If you are actually going fishing with it, you'll need quite a large amount to be able to unwind it all the way into the water. So there you go... the volume discount. Beading stores sell it in much smaller quantities, and then you pay the premium of shopping in an exclusive beading store. LOL. I have read on some sites people quoting paying more than 4 bucks on 10 yards. And that's in the States, where shopping is known to be much cheaper than in Canada. Anyways, has your nylon ever broken on you? I have never had my fishing line break on me in the process of beading. And I never waxed it or anything. LOL! Just off the bobbin and through the beads! No burning, waxing, or doubling. But I guess that doesn't quite fly for peyote stitch. Or maybe it's me to blame, not the fishing line. LOL!
You never quite told me, what is the purpose of waxing? In other words, if you don't wax, what is the consequence? And how is the feel of working with nylon vs. fishing line (well, I guess I'll have to wait for you to try with fishing line). Oh, with regards to fishing line, I should tell you that there are different thicknesses. I recommend getting a bobbin of 8lbs, 6lbs, and maybe 14lbs. The smaller the number, the thinner the fishing line (unlike with needle thickness LOL). 6lbs is great for working with size 11 or 15 seed beads. It fits through the tiny holes multiple times. I use 8lbs to work with size 6 seed beads (will also work for size 11, if they are in the same piece as the size 6 seed beads). I use the heavier duty fishing line (like 14 lbs) to work with plastic beads with large holes in them. The thin fishing line is not appropriate because the beads kind of go limp on it. They are too heavy and the thin fishing line doesn't support the weight very well. On the other hand, the thick line doesn't go through the small beads!
Speaking of which, is there a size gradient for nylon thread as well? Or is it one size fits all?
As far as needles go, I have tried getting needles thin enough to fit through a small seed bead, but I have not found any. I have found needles that will go through the beads alone, but not if there is already fishing line in those beads. Also, not when I have strung fishing line through the hole of the needle (because then the bead hole must accomodate both the needle and the fishing line thickness).
Thanks for trying to help!
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Okay here is a picture of my peyote piece.
Attempt #1 at Peyote Stitch (aka the hunchback):
![[image]](images/uploaded/image28.jpg)
The first attempt is quite crooked and although it looks like you could just straighten it, you can't. It takes back its natural shape. I even tried fitting a wire through the backbone (as you can see in the picture). The piece shaped the wire, rather than the wire shaping the piece.
Attempt #2 at Peyote Stitch (aka the leaner):
![[image]](images/uploaded/image29.jpg)
The one thing I did right in this attempt was put the wire into the backbone of the piece early on (right after stringing all the beads, before even starting to stitch). So in this case, the beads took the shape of the wire. But then, as the rows progressed, the whole entire piece started leaning towards the right. You can see that the left and right edges are both leaning towards the right, and not upright. I cannot despite my mightiest efforts, straighten them out to face upwards. They insist on leaning towards the right.
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The only thing I can think after seeing it is that it is the beads. Do you know what type of beads these are? Like Japanese or are these just from the craft store?
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Haha, my seed beads are from the dollar store. I think they are probably made in China. Actually though, after posting that picture of my leaning peyote piece, I managed to straighten it! I just had to apply pressure in the right places on it and the beads all shifted upright!! Like magic!
Peyote Stitch Attempt 2: the straight and narrow
![[image]](images/uploaded/image30.jpg)
You know what else happened though? I changed strings to a new piece and worked it in like you said through the existing beads in the piece before continuing to bead. What happened though is quite strange. It was an even count peyote stitch piece (30 beads long), but with the new piece of string, for some odd reason, I am forced to the the odd count peyote turn on BOTH ends!! I don't know what I have done wrong to turn two even ends into two odd ends. There are still 30 beads in each row. Has this ever happened to you?
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No it has not happened to me but I believe you came out of the wrong bead when you weaved back thru and that is what threw you off kilter.
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Maybe... but I don't see how I could have come out the wrong bead when there's only one way to come out. But one thing I can say is that I decided to weave my new string on the other side of the piece. So rather than continuing to stitch where I left off, I started my new string on the bottom of the piece (ie, the first row, where I started the piece). I decided to start weaving back from the starting point, but in the other direction. Is that what ruined me?
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Yes that would have been your problem. When you add thread to your peyote, you have to come out of a bead that is lower then the second bead. When you went the other way, you came out of a bead that was higher than the second bead, causing you to need to do the odd count peyote turn. Does that make sense? Also, my mom just got my sister's senior pictures done. She was telling me about the program the ladies uses for her photos. Its called Picasa and its free. I downloaded it last night but havent had much time to play. But my mom was telling me some of the things she did with it, you can blur the background, do touch up (like she said she could remove my sisters mole on her check in the pictures if they wanted), you can turn the whole picture black and white or just parts of it (they did one in black and white and left my sisters bright green converse in color). I think this is right up your alley (its even from google!) Picasa Here is the link where you can get it.
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Oh crap! What do I do now to save myself? I don't want to be doing odd count the whole way down!! Should I undo what I've done so far in the other direction?
I've used picasa before a couple of years ago. It's a good program for organizing your pictures. It imports automatically every picture stored on your entire computer. I didn't know it did picture editing because I never needed any photo editing software since I have photoshop. I don't think it would be a very easy task to write a program that can do a better job of editing a picture than photoshop. I just read the 400 page manual!
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Don't rip it up. Can you tie it off and go back to the other end and continue from there?
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Well, I guess I can just end it there and cut off the excess string. Or... is it possible rather than actually cutting the string, to weave it back to the top? That way I avoid cutting, knotting, and restarting. Or would it still be odd-count peyote at the top too unless I change strings? It's good that this happened to me actually because I'm learning the hard way how to handle peyote stitch properly. LOL!
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you should be able to weave back thru no problem and it should work fine as long as you position the thread to come out of a bead that is lower than the second bead.
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It just clicked in my head what you meant by lower and higher second bead. Thanks for the tip. I was confused about how to tell whether you are going to have even or odd count peyote turns. So, even though they call it an odd count peyote turn, it could happen in any instance when the last bead is higher up than the second last bead in the row. They should have a more general name for it than odd count because that implies it would only happen to you if you were doing odd count peyote stitch. LOL!
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Thanks for the tip! That's a great relief that I'm not in such dire straits as I thought I was! I was seriously worried that the piece was ruined and that I'd have to start over.
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Hey Jax! I changed the look of my links to make them a bit more compact and neat looking (and in my opinion, more legible too!) The problem before was the background picture had too much detail in that area, so what I did was paint an opaque blue background over the link bar in photoshop, and that allowed me to reduce the font size on the links. I think it looks better. What do you think? Also, you may notice the title picture loads faster. This is because I "optimized it for the web". It's a special photoshop feature that lets you reduce the file size while trying to minimize image quality reduction. The title picture is now less than half the file size it was before. I can't even tell the quality is different. Makes you wonder why the file size needs to be so huge in the first place. I'm thinking I can go around one fine day when I have time and do it to all the site pictures, because loading time has always been a problem for this site. It's definitely picture-heavy!
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Oohh, I think I forgot to tell you about my new Beading Market idea. I sent out the idea to my newsletter subscribers, but you never joined the newsletter! Basically, I'm gonna let other beaders post pictures with descriptions and prices of pieces they want to sell to others. That way it spruces up the site with a little something extra for visitors to look at, and it helps out in giving exposure to beading "vendors". I've already received submissions from people! Everyone's way ahead of me as usual.
Did you want to sell anything beaded that you've made? Or perhaps you could be persuaded to start based on the success of the others! (well, I hope there will be success anyway). I've already gotten about 10 responses telling me they loved the idea. There are 38 subscribers to my newsletter, and usually it works out that at least three quarters of people are too shy to have their voices heard. So that's pretty good support for the idea!
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I love the links. I noticed them before I even read your post. They are more eye catching like this then when they were big. I love the idea of the bead market too. Guess I gotta get my but in gear and get some stuff made! I thought I had signed up for the newsletter but I never got a confirmation e-mail. It was going to my spam folder of course but I finally found all five or six requests I put in!
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OH NO!! That must mean that all hotmail users are getting it sent to their spam as well. There is a huge proportion of internet users that use hotmail email addresses! Eeeek.... Should I put a notice saying to check your spam if you're from hotmail? I can't believe Microsoft (makers of hotmail) is so much against Google that they would send email from Google to the spam folder. I mean how much more legit can a company be than Google, and hotmail is calling it spam.
Oh, by the way, I followed your advice, and my peyote stitch is back on track! I've done several more rows, and it looks better than ever! I feel like the more rows I add, the more stable it becomes.
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Okay Jax, I've sent a newsletter announcing the Beading Market... did you get it?
I just realized you are on yahoo, not hotmail. LOL! Still... I've noticed that there are very few hotmail users who joined my newsletter. I bet they are all the same. I don't understand why they would reject an email from google. Oh, I don't think I explained that google is providing my newsletter service. The welcome email is sent straight from google. So bizarre.
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Yeah I got it. I didn't know to look for a google link because I did go to my spam but I was looking for something that said from 3D beading. It might be a good idea to put something on the page that tells you to respond to the e-mail.
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The way it works when you hit subscribe is that it sends you to a google page that tells you you're almost done but you have to click on the confirmation link in the email they send you... I've just posted the message "If you do not receive the confirmation email, please check your junk mail." Do you see it there on the side? I'm sure people will read it before entering their email address in the box. Hopefully!
I had also sent you an email invite ages ago but wondered why you never responded. LOL!
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Jax, I figured out how they do two-row peyote stitch. It isn't quite as wonderful as it sounds, and I think for me, it might actually take longer. They have the pdf tutorials of it on beadandbutton.com's free projects for October 2007. What they do is string all the beads for two rows onto the string (just like at the beginning), and go through the last bead in the row, in the opposite direction (coming back towards the beginning of the row). Then, they string up and down through the beads to separate all the strung beads into two rows, and when they've made their way back to the beginning, they've added two rows. The problems I see are that much like with the first two rows of the stitch, adding a whole bunch of beads at the same time makes the pattern much less even. Also, the worst thing is that you will have to count the beads to add to make sure you add exactly the right number of beads. And if you realize later that you screwed up your counting, you have to start over because you've already strung back through the beads going in the opposite direction. It would probably be good for peyote that is narrow and long, rather than short and wide, where there would be way too many beads to string, and losing count would be too easy.
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I have that issue of Bead and Button and I was looking at it too. I feel the same way about it that you did. It may work well for the small bracelets that I make for my kids but I wouldn't want to use it for anything more than a four to six wide I think.
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I should show you where I've gotten so far with my peyote stitch. I'm about to start adding the lettering!! I'm thinking navy blue beads might go well with the silver background. I'm already 1/3 done. I can already get a curvature out of it when I wrap it around the pen! It's looking much better now. In fact, even though my mom had seen it in its infancy, when she saw it again yesterday, she didn't remember seeing it before, and asked, "What's that? It's so pretty! What are you using it for?" I said "To wrap around a pen." She answered, "Oh, what a waste." LOL!
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Yes I am excited to see it. At least your mom looks! Mine is not really interested. I have made a few things for my younger sister and she is like oh I see. My sister loves it tho so that makes it worth it. My mom even asked me why I brought my beads with me when we went up there. Like I would leave them at home. I will give her some credit tho, I made her a large tote bag with my two favorite fabrics (one was lovely blue with butterflies and the other was blue and called mosaic) for mothers day a few years ago and I was surprised to see her use it when we went to the park while we were in Oregon.
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LOL, that's wonderful!! Isn't it rewarding to see your gifts being used? You should have installed a spycam to make sure she still uses it when you're not around. LOL!! Anyways, I tried out your lettering and another lettering for peyote stitch online, and both didn't look that great for the name in question "Eric" (my boyfriend). So I decided to make up my own. I'm doing cursive letters! (ie, connected letters). I found that they were surprisingly easy to pull off with a peyote pattern, compared to divided letters. I had way more trouble trying to make divided letter characters! I actually like cursive letters better because he writes cursively, and it just looks prettier. I just can't wait to show you!!! I drew my lettering pattern on a sheet of blank peyote graph paper (which I searched for in google and printed). I will have to transfer it to the software so that I can make a computer file out of it and attach it here. By the way, have you tried that easy bead pattern software (the one for peyote stitch)? I haven't gotten around to trying it myself yet.....
Which reminds me, I recently discovered that there exists a free software just as powerful as photoshop for photo editing!! It's called GIMP. You can find it at gimp.org. It has all the same tools and functions as photoshop. I can't wait to make a tutorial on how to use it to powerfully edit photos to make them super pretty and vibrant. Like, did you notice the photoshopping job I did on Sue's arrow bracelet? I cropped the bracelet out of the background, overlayed it over a solid baby blue background, and put a glow of white around the bracelet. I really brings out the bracelet colours. Also, I brightened the colours on the bracelet itself. They were more faded before. Of course, I did that in photoshop, but I'm sure Gimp would be quite handy for much the same kinds of things. And they look hard, but they are SO easy to do, and take several minutes only. The program does all the hard work for you (eg. cropping out the background... the program auto-detects pixels that are similar in colour, ie, part of the background, and takes them out). Anyways, how exciting! Our free program stash is ever-growing.
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That one picture does really pop. You have a knack for this! I have not tried any of the software I have downloaded but today is beading day (I am off on Wednesday and Thursdays every week) so after I do my few chores, I am pulling out my beads!
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I just noticed I forgot to finish my thought in the last post, I can't wait to see your letters in cursive too!
I tried to do a peyote frog today but it is not coming out as well as I would like. And it took a long time just to get thru half the body. But I will keep trying to see what I can get to work. I had to take a break from that so I tried to do a RAW frog.
I made a ball. Got frustrated so moved on so I could actually do something and complete it tonight so I thought I would actually try the peyote two lines at a time. OMG I LOVE IT. I did simple to start, 8 rows wide, 2 colors, and it is going so fast! I think I could move on to an actual pattern any size and be ok. So tomorrow it will be back to making a frog. Wish me luck!
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That's great! So I guess it's better than it sounds. But that's because you are already good at peyote. I bet I would make a mess out of it. I saw pictures of the beadwork of a lady who used peyote stitch to wrap bottles. It was outrageous. The beads wrapped the bottle like glue! (but without glue!). She used the whole one-drop, two-drop thing to manage the curves in the glass (these were not plain straight bottles! they were like flasks, with round bottoms and skinny tops). I felt bad not being able to manage a simple flat strip of basic even-count peyote stitch.
Oh, I installed and tried out Gimp. It's basically a carbon copy of Photoshop. All the commands, menu items, tools, etc. are identical to those in Photoshop. I'm surprised Adobe can't sue them for such overt reproduction of their work. I think my boyfriend once told me though that software cannot be copyrighted, and anyone can steal your idea. As long as they don't steal your actual code, but rather code it themselves from scratch. So there you have it. That's why it got the nickname "the free photoshop" I guess. LOL! Good news for beaders though because that means I will be able to learn this program very fast and make a tutorial on how to enhance beading photos. It's pretty important for sellers to be able to enhance the colours/brightness/contrast of their photos because that is what the buyer is judging their beadwork on. There is nothing else since objects can't be emailed or posted on the net, only pictures!
Oh Jax, did I ever show you my questionnaire for my beading match-maker idea? It's here: http://3dbeading.com/questionnaire.php
One day I hope to make a system where people fill out that form and get matched to other beaders that have similar responses. And maybe have a "facebook wall" type of system for them to communicate directly. Alas, if only I had the time.
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Jax, I've discovered a new 3D beading pattern! It's a beaded bird. It's so cute! It's got a whole bunch of pictures and written instructions in English!
The link to the beaded bird pattern is here:
http://community.livejournal.com/bead_tutorial/10135.html#cutid1
For your designated beading day activities! LOL!
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Can I fill out the questionnaire yet and submit it or is it still a work in progress? I think it covers just about everything, does it ask what area you are from? One thing I would love to do is meet up with other local beaders and bead together. I saw the bird too, how cute, I can't wait to try it. I was hoping to get something done tonight but the joy of having kids! You never can plan anything!
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LOL!! You can't fill it out yet! Well.... you can, but your answers won't go anywhere. LOL!
Yes, I don't know that joy yet. But babies are soooo cute!
That's a good idea. I was thinking about adding a few non-beading general questions yesterday. Maybe where are you from, what age group are you, that sort of thing.