Many of you know that I'm a glutton when it comes to learning, especially anything that concerns beading. I love storing facts and figures about the history of beadwork, bead manufacturing, and the business of beading. But my very favorite way to indulge my hunger around beading is to learn new stitches. I ravenously collect these new techniques, stitching little samples and tacking them up nearby to use as visual reminders.

One way I've enjoyed this stitch indulgence lately is to dive into Favorite Bead Stitches, a wonderful publication that contains forty-one jewelry designs that feature specific stitches. What a great way to learn. For example, want to master right-angle weave? I'm guessing you'll learn faster if you've got a beautiful bracelet as your incentive.

Another way I indulge my love of bead learning is to figure out new ways to combine stitches. I do this a lot when I design a new piece, and since there are so many stitches to choose from, I hardly ever just use one stitch in a design. It can be tricky to move from one stitch to another smoothly, though. Here are a few of the most natural transitions from one stitch to another:

Brick stitch to peyote stitch

With this transition, you'll use the beads along the edge of a brick-stitched piece (shown in orange here) as your up beads for peyote stitch (shown in turquoise).

Peyote stitch to right-angle weave

To transition from peyote stitch to right-angle weave, make a hidden turnaround, then use each up bead in your final peyote-stitched row (colored blue in this illustration) as the bottom bead of each right-angle-weave unit (colored pink).

Ladder stitch to herringbone stitch

This is a very traditional way to start a piece of herringbone stitch. Since the ladder-stitched beads are already side-by-side (colored green), you can easily start a row of herringbone stitch (colored yellow).

Right-angle weave to netting

Much like the peyote-stitch to right-angle weave transition, with this one you'll use the top beads of each right-angle-weave unit (colored blue) as base beads for a row of nets (colored orange).