Japanese Peyote Stitch Bird

In Japan, we visited this chain craft store called Yuzawaya that had soooo many crafting kits, which is super inspiring to learn new skills and expand our hobbies.

Below are the first 2 kits that we have built, mine is the yellow one that I named Pudding. Before you open the package, all you can see is the paper and not the actual contents inside. These birds just looked so cute I didn't even pay attention to what we were making so you can bet I was surprised when we opened the contents and finally realized we are not making a full sized gamaguchi coin purse here. It is a much smaller keychain charm in the shape of a coin bag.

The kit literally contains everything that you need to get this project done, well maybe except for scissors, but if you don't own scissors, you really need to reflect on what's going on in your life.

So there's the beads which after a lot of research (trying to buy more to make more projects), I believe they are Miyuki Delica beads, maybe size 11/0 or potentially smaller. Each kit came with the colours needed and a lot extra for each colour. For me, I tried pouring the beads out carefully but they still bounced off the table. They were easy to find in the carpet but in case yours fly out for some reason as well there is no need to worry. Somehow for the blue bird, which my partner never dropped any beads like me, did run out of the main blue colour. Lots of extra black beads but not the main blue. Luckily, he could easily improvise and use another colour to substitute it.

It comes with 1 needle (size 10) which was long and flexible making it very easy to work with. The thread was so luxurious, I think it was some type of nylon that was coated in wax so it would not tangle easily. After using this, I can't imagine using a cheaper thread because this was absolutely wonderful to work with.

There was also a lot more stuffing than you could realistically stuff your bird with, the metal clasp at the top, and the cord for the charm.

Lastly, it comes with a very large instruction sheet, double sided and in Japanese with lots of charts. It was super easy for us to follow, we used the Google lens to translate the text and followed the diagram. The direction of the thread through each bead is very clear so it was very delightful for me to follow. I should probably mention that apparently on the website the difficulty rating for this project was 3/5 and I think it says it takes 150 minutes to complete.

I won't be putting any pictures of the charts since that's how these kits make money so I would highly recommend getting your own kit to get started into the Japanese beading world!

What's unique about this technique is that the beads are staggered in height so reading the chart at first to identify which row is row is a little tricky. What you do is start building the middle panel where the width is consistent, and just follow the bead colours back and forth until you reach the bottom (or the back since it will be folded).

As you can see, I did not pull the beads tight enough at this point so the bird is very crooked. After that last row though, you can already start to understand how the face of the bird will be constructed. And don't worry, soon after, I went back to each row to tighten the thread which helped A LOT. It's just easier to get in-between the beads while it is loose. 

You can literally see the thread sticking out on the sides LOL. So take this as a very bad example of what you don’t want to do, at least do not claim that you are done at this point.

And now a side-by-side comparison of the 2 birds. The blue bird, Bubbles, is a lot less wonky than Puddings because they were smart enough to pull tightly after every row.

Now we continue to the end of the middle panel, which is a mirrored version of the top without the facial details for the back of the bird.

Once the middle panel is done, we start working on the sides with a different kind of stitch and only adding 1 bead at a time. Here’s the final beaded piece and the front and back once folded.

The final steps are sewing it closed, stuffing, and sewing on the metal clasp. And that's it! The charm is done!

Final Remarks

This was a very good kit to get you hooked to beading. If anyone knows the proper term for this type of beading, I’d love to know so I can do more research on other techniques this kit didn’t teach me.

Using this kit, I was inspired to make my own design so I found a local store that sells the beads and the incredible miyuki thread. Check out my next post to see what I designed and how I designed it!

Overall, this kit was a very good introduction to beading in this style and it’s easy to start making your own designs! The kit itself cost around 1500 yen, which is a very good price and I definitely learned something new.

I also got other kits from that same store that I will eventually post once I get around to them!