Bead a Tribute to these Majestic Whales in Peyote Stitch

Orcas, also known as Killer Whales, are some of the most intelligent and beautiful beings on our planet. This bag is my small tribute to their grace and brilliance. I will share the pattern for the body of the bag and some tips for construction this week and return next week with the strap, fringe, and any other embellishments I come up with.

I used a photo of an orca to get the shape and coloring of the whale, then made up a repeating design to fill in the remaining space. The idea was to suggest the ocean and give the background some visual interest without detracting from the whale in the foreground. My taste tends toward strong contrasts and iconic imagery so that's what I went for here. The picture doesn't show the background very well, it's subtle, but not that subtle.

I used matte transparent dark blue and aqua, opaque white and jet 3-cuts, but I think this bag would look even better in Delicas. Either way, I'd skip the 3-cuts if I were you, they are nice and sparkly, but insanely irregular and tend to distort the fabric a bit.

This bag is beaded in Even Count Tubular Peyote Stitch.

You may find it difficult to keep track of the background pattern, especially if you use the same beads shown here. It is helpful to is indentify the repeating color sequence in each row as you go. For example, the sequence for the top row (where the tip of the tail ends) is light, dark, light, light, dark. Each row has a repeating 5 bead sequence of light and dark. The sequence is interrupted by the whale, but continues as if it hadn't been, so you can just count the black and white beads as if they were blue ones to get back on track again.

Before you start, decide which end (top or bottom) you will start from and use a ruler to draw a diagonal line from your first bead across the pattern. This will help you keep track of where each row begins and ends. Have fun!