How to read a bead pattern

The first page: the whole picture

Page one shows the full pattern with a numbered list of every colour and how many you need. Colour 1 is the one used most. Buy from this list before you start.

Pegboards: A1, A2, B1

Big fuse bead patterns are split into 29 × 29 boards. Board labels read like a map: the letter is the row of boards, the number is the column. A1 is top left, A2 is to its right, B1 is below A1.

Every peg on a board page shows the number of its colour. Heavier lines every 5 pegs help you count.

Row by row: loom, kandi and friendship bracelets

Beadwork patterns also come as a written list, one line per row. "4 × 2" means four beads of colour 2. Friendship bracelet rows alternate direction, so each line says whether to work left to right or right to left.

Peyote: rows 1 and 2 together

In flat even-count peyote the first pass picks up the top bead of every column, which forms rows 1 and 2 at once. After that each row adds one bead to every other column, and the direction turns at each edge.

The chart draws every other column half a bead lower, the way the beads sit in the finished piece.

Brick stitch: offset rows

Brick stitch charts shift every other row half a bead, like bricks in a wall. Start the widest row in ladder stitch, then add each row onto the one before. Empty cells at the ends are simply left out.