Herringbone Spiral Stitch In Bead Weaving

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Herringbone spiral stitch is basically a variation of tubular Herringbone. It creates a spiral effect in your beads, as you may imagine. You may also see this referred to as a Herringbone twist.

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So, in this blog post, I’m going to be showing you the basic technique and then talking about some variations. If you prefer to learn from video tutorials, you can do that by following this link to an online class.

I will also share some links to projects that use the technique. So, you can build up your skills and try a few different variations. Now, let’s get started…

Herringbone Spiral Stitch Technique

As I’ve just said, this is a variation of tubular Herringbone. So, please make sure you know how to work in the basic tubular stitch before you try this. If you don’t know tubular Herringbone yet, don’t worry. It’s very easy to learn and I have a blog that will teach you. So, just follow this link to learn the basics.

Now, to create a spiral, you are simply going to alter the number of beads you go down and up.

So, in the basic tube, you would pick up 2 beads, pass down through 1, up through 1.

Well, in a spiral you would pick up 2 beads, pass down through 1, BUT up through 2. Repeat that on every stitch, until your final stitch. You will still need to step up. So, in this stitch, you would pick up 2, pass down through 1, up through 3 beads. Basically, it is the usual number of beads plus one for your step up.

So, this is how the thread path would look in a diagram.

Herringbone spiral stitch, Katie Dean, My World of Beads

Again, if you’re struggling to understand, I do have a full video demonstration in my online class. So, just follow this link to begin that at any time.

Variations

Now, I also told you that there are many different variations you can try.

For starters, you can change the direction of your spiral by passing down through TWO and up through ONE. So, that would mean, on your last stitch, your step up would be passing up through two beads.

Secondly, you can alter the intensity of the spiral by playing around with the proportions of beads. For example, you might pass down through one and up through THREE to give a more intense spiral. Again, this can be reversed. And, again, this would affect your step up, so you would be stepping up through four beads in this example.

Thirdly, you can mix together different sizes of seed beads. So, this gives a more textured look to your spiral. Again, you have numerous combinations that you can try with that. Plus, you can also mix in your spiral bead counts as well.

Finally, you can work out ways of embellishing your spiral.

So, let me give you a few projects to allow you to try out some of these ideas.

Herringbone Twist Bangle, Katie Dean, Beadflowers

Projects for learning the technique and variations

You should start out with a basic project to learn the simplest spiral first. I designed this beginner Herringbone spiral bangle or bracelet for that purpose.

In the photo, above, you can see a couple of variations. Both are very quick to make, and everything is explained in the pattern.

From there, you might like to move on to try the same kind of thing, but using different sized seed beads. So, my Candy Herringbone Spiral Necklace is an ideal project for that. It’s shown below.

Candy Necklace, Katie Dean, Beadflowers

You can also try a couple of embellished spiral necklaces. My ‘Embellished Herringbone Spiral’ necklace uses superduos alongside the seed beads, and embellishes everything with pearls.

The snow white necklace introduces another level of embellishment, using just seed beads.

You can find all of these patterns – and more – at this link. Look out for more variations that play around with the direction of the spiral or the bead count.

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1 Response

  1. Terry Paterson says:

    Would you be able to reverse the drawn patterns of your herring bone stitches so a right-handed person can follow it? I’ve noticed a lot of what patterns are showing now go from left to right but I stitch right to left as a right dominant person. Thanks.

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