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Beading Instructions: Double St. Petersburg Chain Tutorial

Sep 21, 2011 by Jennifer VanBenschoten

A couple of years ago, I started seeing this wonderful variation on St. Petersburg chain popping up in magazines and in finished beadwork on Etsy. I was never particularly fond of St. Petersburg chain, but double St. Petersburg chain makes a beautiful strap for a beaded necklace or a gorgeous beaded bracelet all by itself. If you are already familiar with St. Petersburg chain, working this variation of the popular beading stitch is easy and fun!

To get started, work a length of regular St. Petersburgh chain. When I work double St. Petersburg chain, I usually begin in the center of my thread and wrap the other side of the thread around a plastic thread bobbin. Then when I'm ready to start the second side, I unwrap the thread from the bobbin and I'm ready to go! No worries about adding new thread!
Pick up your base beads and add them as you did on the first side of the chain. But instead of adding another accent bead, stitch through the accent bead from the first side.
Pass back down through the base beads you just added as you normally do in St. Petersburg chain.

Pick up an accent bead and stitch up through the other base beads you added in the first step.

Continue to stitch in this manner, passing through the accent beads on the inside of the first side of your double St. Petersburg chain and adding accent beads to the outside edge.
The finished piece of double St. Petersburg chain can be used as a bracelet, necklace or necklace strap for a larger pendant. Use your imagination when choosing beads for the inside and outside of the chain. You can also easily embellish it even further by adding drop beads or short fringe on the outside beads.

Have you ever tried double St. Petersburg chain? Share your thoughts and tips here on the blog, or better yet, take a picture of your double St. Petersburg chain creation and post it in the Reader Photo Gallery!

Bead Happy,

Jennifer

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Comments

 
BeadsNWire wrote
on Oct 6, 2011 3:00 PM

Thank you for the post! I will definitely give this a try sometime :-)

horselove wrote
on Oct 8, 2011 10:44 AM

I once used regular St. Petersburg chain to make a Christmas neclace for my grammy with bead colors that made it look kinda like holly with red berries on it.

I love the double St. Petersburg chain, and I think it would look great as a bracelet or a necklace! You could even figure out a way to put small crystal beads in the middle for extra sparkle!

nugatorytm wrote
on Oct 8, 2011 4:21 PM

You know what this reminds me of?  Those crochet Mile-A-Minute afghan strips.  I'll just bet you could make a few of these and 'stitch' them together with the main color beads to fill in the gaps and you'd have a lovely miniature beaded afghan.

priscillareichert wrote
on Nov 26, 2012 9:58 PM

I just saw a necklace"Blooming in St. Petersburg" featured on "about.com.beadwork"  I love the necklace but cannot find the pattern.  Has anyone have the pattern?  Would appreciate the help.

pr@zfine.com

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