Micro Tortoise-Tutorial

Remember the tortoise I showed you the other day? I made another one, with slightly bigger beads, and took some pictures along the way.

So today, I present to you my very first beading tutorial. 🙂

I hope you enjoy it and populate your show cases with lots and lots of tiny tortoises!

Tortoise

inspired by EvaBlond

Gather your materials:

Beading thread or nylon (I used yellow Nymo)

Beading needle

2 Colors of Beads the same size (I used yellow and brown)

2 Black Beads (of the same size as the others) for the Eyes

Lets bead this thing:

1. First, pick up five brown beads and pass through them with your thread again, forming them into a ring.

You can tie a knot with the tail of the thread, pull the knot through a couple of beads and cut the tail very close to the bead it is extending from. Or leave the tail until the end to weave it into your beadwork and cut it then.

2. Now pick up one yellow bead and pass your needle and thread through the next brown bead.

3. Do this five times around the beadwork.

4. Pass the thread through the first yellow bead added.

This is called a step up.

Your beadwork will look like this now:

5. For the next round, pick  up two yellow beads at once and pass your needle and thread through the next yellow bead (up-bead) from the previous round.

This is called an increase in peyote stitch.

6. Do this five times around the beadwork. The step up for this round goes through only the first one of the two beads picked up at the beginning of this round.

This is what your piece looks like now.

7. In this round, you will place one bead between each bead from the previous round. Start with a brown bead, then a yellow bead, then brown and so on.

8. Take the step up through the first, brown bead picked up in this round.

This is what your piece should look like now:

9. In this round, add one brown bead into each gap, and don’t forget to take the step up.

You beadwork should look like this now:

10. Repeat step 9, but with yellow beads.

11. Step up through the first yellow bead picked up in this step.

12. Add another round with brown beads. Step up through the first brown bead added.

13. In this step, you will work a decrease all around. To achieve this, pick up one brown bead and pass your needle and thread through the next two brown beads from the previous round.

14. Note: for the step up, in this round you will have to pass your needle and thread through three beads!

15. Now work a normal round of tubular peyote with yellow beads. That is, pick up one yellow bead, pass it through the next brown up-bead, and repeat this stitch around the beadwork.

16. You now have a ring of five yellow beads. Pass the thread through all five beads again to reinforce.

17. Weave your thread through the beadwork until it extends from a bead in the circle of six brown beads, near the bottom of your tortoise, like shown here. (By the way, you can decide which side you would like to be the top of your tortoise at this point. Just make sure the thread is pointing toward the middle of the circle, near the side you would like to be the bottom of the turtle shell.)

18. For the feet, pick up three brown beads and pass the needle through the brown bead opposite the one the thread extended from in the previous step.

This is the first hind leg of your tortoise:

19. Next to the first foot, we will add the tail. Pass needle and thread through the yellow bead between two circles of brown beads.

20. Pick up one brown bead and pass your needle through the yellow bead again, in the same direction as before.

21. Now, pass the needle through the brown bead just added again.

22. Add another brown bead in the same way and weave the thread back toward the tortoise’s body through the first brown bead and the yellow bead.

23. Weave the thread on to the next circle of brown beads and add the second hind leg as well as the first front leg as described in step 18.

24. For the head, have the thread extend from a brown bead of the next circle just like for the legs. Pick up two brown beads and  pass your needle and thread through the opposite brown bead.

25. Now pass the thread through the yellow bead in the middle of the same circle…

26. … and up through the brown bead you started the head from and the first brown bead added in step 24.

27. Pick up two brown beads and pass the thread down through the second bead added in step 24.

28. Pass the needle and thread up trough the brown beads on the opposite side.

This is called herringbone stitch.

29. Add two yellow beads in the same way as described in steps 27 and 28.

30. For the eyes, repeat step 29 with black beads.

31. For the nose, pick up one brown bead and pass the needle back down through all the beads of the head and neck.

32. Add the last leg as described in step 18.

And your little turtle is finished!

For this tutorial, I used 9/0 beads (2.5mm).

As you can see, it is considerably bigger than the one I made with 15/0 beads.

I hope you have enjoyed my little tutorial!

Please do let me know if you run into any problems following these instructions – and I’d love to see pictures of the tortoises you make from this tutorial! 🙂