Hugs and Kisses Heart Peyote Tube Bead Free Pattern

 Make this Valentine's Day themed peyote bead pattern to send hugs and kisses to someone you love.

 The pattern can be used to make a small square of peyote beadwork that you can use for a pin or earrings or a pendant - or maybe even add it to a Valentine's Day card. 

Or you can zip up the edges like I did in order to make a peyote beaded tube bead. You can also use the bead diagram to make the project in brick stitch, if that is the stitch you prefer. 

The beads I used are Toho size 11 round beads in silver lined milky white, opaque pepper red and opaque jet.  I used FireLine 8 lb. thread in Crystal (Amazon Affiliate link).

Using round beads instead of cylinder beads for this projects is an unusual choice, but I chose them for a couple of reasons. The primary reason was that I can't remember using Toho rounds for a flat peyote project in a long time, so this was a good opportunity. 

The other reason was that I wanted a more organic feel to the finished beadwork. Something that would remind me of a childhood Valentine greeting - perfectly imperfect. I love the way delica beads snap into place for peyote but they are very uniform and square, so I thought that may feel too stiff for the look I was trying to achieve.

I didn't originally plan to make a tube bead - just the square swatch, but when I realized that the hugs and kisses (XO) symbols would align perfectly as a tube, I had to stitch it up. It was impulsive, but I don't regret it.

Once I zipped the edges together to make a tube bead, I had to figure out how to add a round filler to the tube so it didn't flatten. A lot of people fill tube beads with straws, so I tried to find one in the house that fit, but there weren't any the right size.

Luckily, I remembered the beaded roll of toilet paper tutorial that I made during the height of the pandemic when the shelfs were bare of toilet paper. I used a coil of wire to fill the toilet paper bead. Coincidentally, I've made several projects with coiled wire lately, so it was the perfect solution.

I used my 6-step bail making pliers and some scrap wire to make a coil using the 3rd smallest (4 mm) stepped barrel. Then I elongated the coil so it would fill the bead and trimmed off any sharp edges.

The coil slid inside the bead perfectly. I like that the wire coil adds a little bit of weight to the bead.

Below is the bead chart and peyote instructions. If it looks a bit different than the pattern I used, that is because I like my images upright (not sideways) so I used a brick stitch chart, but made the bead using peyote stitch. I made a peyote stitch version just in case other people like to use the word chart.

If you like Valentine's Day projects, I have a few more that I hope to add soon - so stop back and check, or subscribe to my Newsletter to stay informed of the latest projects.