Every peyote beginner hits the same wall in the same place: rows one and two don't look like rows. They aren't yours — the craft builds in offset columns, so the start feels broken until it suddenly isn't. Here is the whole trick, from the chart-reading guide.
The stop bead. Slide a spare bead a few inches along the thread and leave it; it holds the first row together while you work and comes off at the end. Charts assume you have one.
Rows one and two, in one go. Pick up the first chart row and the second chart row in the same stringing, alternating, then turn and thread back through what you strung. Row 3 is the first row you bead one bead at a time — a relief, after that.
The up-bead read. Row 3's rhythm: pick up one bead, skip one, go through the next bead that sticks up. The up-beads are the row-2 beads leaning out of the row; they change hands every row, and each new bead lands between two old ones. The half-step lean you get is the peyote look.
Which way you read the chart while stringing decides where your thread tail meets the clasp end. The app doesn't guess it: it validates your direction by simulating it, for charts from 2 to 15 columns, in both 1-drop and 2-drop — so the wrong-direction surprise gets found on the screen, not at the clasp.
String something this week. — the bench crew