5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

re: 5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

42 Pieces by Ellen — Sat, 10 Sep 2011 23:38:03 GMT

Best lesson I learned to keep frustration down .... if you do it once, its a mistake; do it twice and its a design.

Also self-taught, the first stitch I learned was basic spiral. Very forgiving stitch, so I could make mistakes while learning about the 'behaviour' of beads and threads, and still end up with something wearable from the get-go.

re: 5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

tolkienmithril — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 13:29:06 GMT

I am self taught and love the various resources that exist on the internet. I learned peyote stitch first and that is my truest love. I've done some right angle weave as well. I've tried herringbone but i just don't like it as well as peyote. So tips: 1-big eye needles WILL fit through 11/0 seed beads. Smaller than that and you are probably out of luck. 2- Mono-filament fish line works great and is inexpensive and lasts forever for seed bead weaving. I found that really liberating since the nymo and various other lines were driving me a little crazy. 3-When weaving have multiple needles threaded with shorter lengths of thread if using the traditional needles with the smaller eyes. (Realistically, I don't do this but it seemed like a good idea when I read about it.) 4-A magnifier and light are a god send at times. There are just some days when seeing that needle eye isn't happening. Thanks.

re: 5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

NANDAL — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 01:12:16 GMT

Love the tips on beading. I am trying to learn, but am having problems because I am left handed and nothing comes out right. Any ideas on where I can find left hand instructions for the various beading stitches?

re: 5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

NancyB@5597 — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 01:05:59 GMT

If I had to start from the very beginning again, I would learn right angle weave first. I might not be able to do a very good job of explaining this but here goes; I feel that with RAW, you don't learn any pre-conceived ideas about thread paths as you do with all the other stitches. If you learn this one first, the others becomes so easy to learn. Whereas, if you learn (as I did) peyote first, your brain gets wired a certain way about how thread paths should go. And the other stitches reinforce that thinking, making it kind of hard to learn RAW. Every person I've known who learned RAW first, found it very easy to learn every other stitch, but it doesn't seem (to me, anyway) to be true the other way around. Hope this makes some kind of sense.

re: 5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

Chris Franchetti Michaels — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 14:58:09 GMT

Great tips, Jen! I'm definitely adding this to tomorrow's roundup on About.com Beadwork. :)

re: 5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

kraftykitty — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 09:44:57 GMT

I'm very new to beading, and self taught also. The first stitch I learned was the peyote and it was making me crazy until I figured out that the 1st 2 rows could be done using 2 colors, laying it out every other color, then stringing, starting with the 3rd row. (a,b,a,b,a,b etc, then 3rd row a's through the b's) then I was on my way. Love your magazine and newsletters.

re: 5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

Perdita2 — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 07:16:25 GMT

When I'm trying something new, I tend to annotate (ok, scribble all over) the instructions or pattern I'm following. Which makes my best tip this:

Take a photocopy of your pattern, so that when you scribble all over it you still have the clean original to refer back to.

re: 5 Tips for Learning a New Beading Stitch

sootfoot5 — Thu, 08 Sep 2011 05:32:51 GMT

I couldn't agree more, especially about the short length of thread. I still use shorter thread than what is usually called for. People often say they don't want to add more thread, but I'd much rather add more thread than deal with tangles. Tangles and knots will just frustrate you, and beading is supposed to be fun or relaxing or for whatever GOOD reason you're doing it, not to make you feel tense. After I watched Karla Kam on Auntie's Beads show how to add more thread, I never again worried about using shorter thread, and I've had few knots and tangles since. Thanks Karla - and Jennifer, you're right on target with all 5 of your pointers.