Peyote Instructions

Although peyote is a basic beading stitch, it takes lots of practice in different manifestations of projects to gain true mastery over all of its forms and capabilities.  In this post I have collected some links to the best descriptions I can find of the techniques needed when constructing a beaded peyote bead. Personally I find I learn best by seeing the animation, having picture references, and trying samples as I go, but everyone has different ways of individualizing their learning.

Animations are a great way to understand a stitch.  Here is a link to some animations for basic flat peyote.  It is really important to understand the flat peyote first, and the concepts of up "up beads" and "down beads":
Silverhill Designs: even and odd count flat peyote animation
Click the triangle on each little screen to start the animation. There are also links to some nice but fairly easy patterns.
Here is a good flat even count peyote diagram from Suzanne Cooper, who has an excellent website with lots of free patterns and instructions:
Suzanne Cooper's peyote diagram

A step up is used in tubular peyote.  Tubular peyote is the stitch used for some beaded beads and for amulet bags. Here is a picture of that the step up looks like: From About website
Below is a picture of a step up in action as the last bead is added to a row.  Basically to do a step up you go through 2 beads:  the usual "up" bead to create the last stitch, then through the first bead you added in that row.  When learning step ups it is much easier if you use different color beads until you learn to recognize the pattern.  Occasionally missing the step up is a really common mistake, even for experienced beaders.

Finally, below is a link to a video showing tubular peyote and a step up.  There are also written instructions in detail below the video. Tubular video
If you are doing a larger project based on tubular peyote, this free tutorial from i-beads explains how the starting point moves diagonally across the beading chart.    There is also a good chart for a step up in step 5.
peyote tutorial from i-beads.

So, I hope these links will help increase skills and comfort level with tubular peyote, and a successful beaded bead.