Brick Stitch Beaded Ring with Tutorial and Links

A beading we will go!

I found this fairly easy tutorial on about.com for making a cute beaded ring at http://beadwork.about.com/library/weekly/aa110298.htm

This also uses a video by beadaholique:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EsZADmxvH24

Beaded ring with a blue center bead

It took  me a few hours, but more experienced beaders should be able to do these in 1-2-3. Anyway, you need to know brick stitch, which, when you watch a good video, is not really that hard. The most difficult part for me was doing the increase in rows. I'm linking to the tutorial here from beadaholique, but will also try explaining in my own way how to make the ring.

Tutorial (Sort of)

First, create the band:

Do a brick stitch base row; to do this, pick up 2 beads and tie them in a knot, leaving a 6 inch tail (I'm really bad at knots, so I did it as if I was going to tie shoelaces, but put the string under a second time, then pulled. I thought I would mess it up, but I pulled tight and forced the beads to sit side by side, then held them firmly with my fingers).
Now, go back down the second bead (if your string is coming out from the top, then go down the bead next to it, then back up the bead next to it. Make sure you pull tight. The beads must be sitting next to each other. If you're having a problem with them, see if you may have went up/down the beads the wrong way (I just pull out the thread, go the other direction and see if the beads won't fight me). Moving along...

Take 2 more beads, and go down the bead next to you (where the "working thread" is coming out of. This is the thread you are using, not the tail end). Go back up both beads next to the one where the working thread is exiting from.

Repeat this process until the ring is about 3/4 length around your finger. Remember, pick up 2 beads, go down the upper most bead next to you, and up both beads next to that one.
When you reach the length, you need to do an increase brick stitch. Here's where the video tutorial was pivotal for me. The next row will have 3 beads, then 4, then 5. To do the next row, pick up 2 beads, but instead of going down the bead next to it, you go under the string/loop between the beads and then up and through the bead closest to you. Follow the video here to do the increases, first 3 beads, then 4, then 5 beads.

When you're done, you need to add the outer edges of the ring. After doing an increase, you will do the same stitch you did for the band, but only for 5 rows, as per the about.com tutorial. Weave back down and do the other side in the same way.

You can now choose your bead. From here the tutorial is pretty straightforward I think; thread the focal bead through the middle bead of the row which has 5 beads. The rest is just weaving through the top and bottom, connecting both sides, and going through the band to reinforce it.

There are a lot of possibilities using this pattern. I was surprisingly happy with my result.

Itty bitty ring

Enjoy!

-meowser ッ