Donut fuse bead pattern

About this design

This is the classic top-down ring donut: a Butterscotch dough edge, a hole in the middle and Cotton Candy icing that ripples around the outside instead of ending in a neat circle. Honey beads along the lower right of the dough make it look rounded, and a little patch of Light Pink near the top of the icing works as a glossy highlight. Short two-bead sprinkles in White, Lemon, Sky and Sour Apple are scattered at different angles.

Bead counts: 184 Cotton Candy, 162 Butterscotch, 88 Black, 54 Honey, 17 Light Pink, 11 White, 11 Sour Apple, 8 Lemon and 5 Sky.

Placing the beads

The donut is 27 × 27, so it fills nearly all of a large square pegboard with one empty peg around the edge. Start with the black ring around the hole, then the outer black outline, then place the sprinkles before any icing — they are easier to position when the area around them is still empty. Fill the icing and finally the dough.

Ironing and finishing

As always, the iron is an adult’s job. Larger pieces like this need a little longer: work in sections under the ironing paper, about 10 to 20 seconds each, until all the beads have just merged. Flip and iron the back. Big round pieces like to dome as they cool, so put the donut under a heavy book straight away. At about 13.5 × 13.5 cm it is ideal as a coaster; a sheet of felt glued to the back stops it sliding on the table.

Colour plan

Perler 80-15242 Cotton Candy does the most work, 34% of the 540 beads, followed by Perler 80-19090 Butterscotch at 30%. Perler 80-15269 Lemon (8) and Perler 80-15216 Sky (5) are used only a little: small details worth marking on the chart so you don't miss them. 26% of the grid is left empty.

Working notes

All the beads touch along a full side, so it irons into one solid piece.