Hiya, Niki. This lesson is in Flat Peyote: if you used the simple bottom instructions and didn’t choose the round bottom to close up one end of the tube, then you already know how to do the flat peyote technique.
If you chose the round bottom technique, then good on you. You are learning all kinds of things about the peyote stitch technique.
Now, for the flap, we have 2 choices: a flap with a smooth and straight edge on which to add a fringe, and the uneven edged flap.
FIRST, the even edge:
1. Continue in the tubular manner BUT stop when you are half way around. ensuring you have an even number count.
2. Add a glass bead and turn back, adding a glass bead between each zipper tooth, until you are back to the beginning of the flap.
3. Add a glass bead and turn back. Continue until you have reached a length you like.
DESIGN NOTE: On a piece of paper draw the dimensions of the amulet bag. Draw the bottom edge of the flap. The space measurement between the bottom of the flap and the bottom of the amulet bag is the length of the fringe. If you ignore this measurement, your amulet bag will be out of proportion. And that takes away from the aesthetic balance of your work. Fiddle to your heart’s content with the design of the fringe. Make an inexpensive design board with a remnant of wide wale corduroy and lay out your fringe beads in the wales. Here is your chance to vary the lengths of the strands, the choice of beads, and even a pattern seen in the fringe.
4. From each ‘zipper tooth’ of the flap you will hang a strand of the fringe. Pick up the beads from one string of your corduroy design board. The bottom bead is the turning bead and it is best to be a small bead (but not so small that it slips through the next bead). Then run your needle through the whole string again.
5. Anchor the thread in the peyote flap and come out at the next zipper tooth. Repeat Step 4 and 5 until all the beads have been added to the fringe. Anchor the thread in the flap and ensure the fringe won’t work its way out. That would really be too bad.
Variation on the Fringe:
a) Each strand of the fringe is double in length. You are going to make many loops instead of single fringe elements. This variation is best when the beads are glass seed beads. Having loops all across the flap makes for a thick fringe, and it will not have the same movement as the single strand variation.
b) A variation of a), string the loop of beads. Before you slip your needle through the beads of the flap, twist and twist and twist and twist and tw… until you have the twisted loop you desire. Once the loop has been twisted, slip the needle and thread through the flap to the next zipper tooth. Repeat until you reach the other side of the flap.
There are other variations and lots of scope for you to experiment.
NEXT, the uneven edged flap:
1. Slip your needle through a zipper tooth and add the number of beads for the longest point of the edge. Make sure it is an even number of beads.
2. Work back to the beginning, at the flap edge.
3. Run another 2 rows of even count peyote. When you get back to the flap edge again, slip your needle through the next zipper tooth.
4. Continue in this manner until your flap is as wide as half way around the tube. Varying the jaggedness of this flap by stopping before you reach the furthest edge: or, by adding beads as you did at the beginning of this flap, gives your flap interest.
Variation: Make several flaps of differing widths that overlap one another. Ensure the total measurement of the flap from side to side is not greater than half the diameter of the tube. Find this spot by flattening the tube sideways (not from end to end).
Now you are ready for the strap of the amulet bag.
Copyright © 2008 Helene Turnbull All rights reserved. No part of this work covered by the copyrights hereon may be reproduced or used in any form or by any means – graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or information storage and retrieval systems – without written permission of the author.
Filed under: Apprenticeship of Niki.Tasha | Tagged: amulet bag, corduroy design board, flat peyote technique, glass seed beads, inexpensive design board, Peyote Stitch, zipper tooth | Leave a comment »