Russian heart by Kirsi the Troll

Here's another pattern I came up with while playing with the Russian leaves pattern. I didn't have time for a full scale tutorial this time, so you'll have to study a bit by yourself. If you already tried the Bollywood pattern, it might be training enough to be able to follow these drawings. I learned the technique from Maria's drawing.

I've done these with 11/0 Delicas and 15/0 Japanese seed beads so far, but don't be afraid to try other beads or larger size of the heart!

Again, you can make as many hearts as you want to, use them as you want to and sell them if you wish. The decent thing to do is not start massproduction, though. I own the copyright to these instructions (text and illustration), and you are not allowed to distribute them either in printed or digital form (i.e. posting or hotlinking to another site). You can post links to this page and otherwise spread the word about it. If you publish pictures of your work with this pattern, I expect to be credited as the designer of the pattern - a link to my website or blog would be appreciated. All that said, I hope you'll have fun with the pattern (or at least with the result ;D )!

Start the heart with 3 beads + 3 beads for the tip (red beads at the tip of the heart). Go through bead 3, add a bead (marked with blue), and go through bead 1. From here on you can follow the thread path drawn on the left side. Then repeat on the other side. The yellow bead is shared by the two sides, binding the sides together. The beads marked with green will not be added yet!

(July 30th 2009: I've edited the picture a bit, I hope it's a bit more clear now.)

Now it's time to add the beads marked with green, and to even the edges. It doesn't matter in which order this is done, here's one possible thread path. I haven't found a perfect solution for a bail yet, until now I've just gone repeatedly through the beads on top of the yellow bead. This is the blue line on the drawing. One other way would be to add some beads between the top green beads.