Beaded Amulet Bag

I've always loved these little bags. They're cute, petite, and oh so beautiful!

Since it's been several years since I last made a beaded bag, I decided to do this one in just one color. There are some stunning designs out there, and some of the patterns available are quite intense. Go here for some pretty amazing and free patterns to try out. Just remember, the more complicated the pattern, the easier it is to get lost, and it's not real forgiving.

A brief note on the Peyote stitch (the stitch I used for this bag): begin by stringing an even number of beads on to your thread.

Done that?

Sweet! That's your first 2 rows done! See how easy that was? Now you just string a bead on, run your thread through the second bead from that first row, string another bead on, skip the next bead, and thread through the following bead. If you need a visual, check out my awesome diagram:

Of a caterpillar. Ok, so I'm not good at drawing diagrams! Hopefully it sort of gives you an idea of how this works.

No? Huh. Umm, well... go here then.

So now that were all friends again, we can move on.

Since the peyote stitch is straight forward, and I was only using one color instead of following a pattern, there's not much to say other than keep going. It gives you time to think, or put on some music and sing loudly to drown out the voices in your head. And the voices coming from the rest of the house saying something like, "Turn that down!" Huh, whatever that means. I only listen to awesome music, so surely no one would dare complain! {evil stare, point around the room}

Where was I? Oh yeah, too much time to think.

Once your bag is as tall as you want it to be, it's time to close the bottom thereby transforming it from a beaded tube, to a bag. It's like magic.

You can leave your bag flat and just weave the two sides together, or you can add a bit more dimension to your bag by adding a bottom.


My bag has 3 rows on the bottom just to give a bit more space without making it huge. So first, you have to find the half way points on your tube. Using the flat peyote stitch method, add a few rows to one half of the tube. It's kind of like the tubular peyote stitch, but instead of making a tube, you make a flat piece of bead work.

Amazing how well the names work, eh?





 Almost as if it were planned that way!

So now that you have your bottom flap as big as you want (minds out of the gutter please), it's time to sew it together. Do this by threading your needle (with the thread) through the protruding bead on one side, then the protruding bead on the other side, then back to the first side, back and forth until it's done.




Ta-da! Bag!

Not you. The beaded one!

Now because I'm lazy, I closed the bottom of the bag before I had all my rows done. Why would I do such a thing? Because I felt like it.

Actually, I wanted to add some gold beads to the top of the bag, but threading that tiny needle is such a pain that I decided to close up the end I was working on to save one more threading. Plus, when I can limit the amount of knots that are in a piece, I do. Just because that's the way I roll. It's totally up to you if you close your bag sooner rather than later. Keep in mind, however, that a tube is much easier to work with than a bag since you can have your fingers inside to help to position the beads.

 There's the bag with the row of gold beads on top.

I tried a few things to have more than one row of beads on top, but since the gold are slightly bigger than the blue, everything else looked....not so good. But I quite like the larger beads to finish off the top.

Back to patterns. Really intricate designs can look really amazing. And of course, if you're doing this to sell, you can definitely charge more for intricate designs. But I tend to fall into the trap of overlooking simple designs as being boring. In truth, single or 2-tone designs can be really elegant. Think of it in terms of the Little Black Dress. Versatile, simple, and good for all sorts of occasions.

 Getting off my soapbox now.

There are lots of options for adding the strap to your bag, and it can be a extravagant or simple as you want it to be.

I just used a simple chain stitch with the blue and gold beads.





And here's the final product.

 Perfect size for an ipod nano 6th generation (that I'm still trying to get used to).

 And the reason I added 3 rows to the bottom.


 This one has been listed on my Etsy Shop and I'm hoping to do more in the future.