Beading Basics-Introduction to Stitching

Terri Gable: Hi! I am Terri Gable and today we are talking about basic beading. In this clip, we are going to talk about seed bead stitches. When you are working with seed beads, there are a variety of sizes to choose from. From the very large size 6s to the little tiny size 15s. The size you choose is going to affect the size of your finished project. Today, I am actually going to work with a larger bead, so it will be easier to see what we are doing. All of these stitches are very versatile and as you can see you can make beautiful patterns with these beads, once you know the basic stitches. The size of the bead you choose will affect the size of your finished project. I use the larger bead and a much smaller bead here. We will need scissors, beading thread, beading needles, which have a smaller eye as in a sowing needle, and some sort of thread conditioner. A work surface is very important, something that will keep your beads from rolling over. This is just sort of a nice Beadalon type of beading mat that is readily available. It is easy to choose the color of thread to match your color of beads. I would certainly use a blue or a gray on these but for our video, I am actually going to use white thread and white colored beads, it will be easier for you to see. To start with, you want to cut a comfortable length of thread. I recommend beginners using about a yard and half of thread. We are just going to cut that off. The easiest way to thread these needles, because they have very small eyes, I find is to pinch the thread down between your thumb and forefinger, so you just see a little speck of it sticking up and lay the eye of the needle down on to the thread. We have our thread ready.

Now to condition the thread you never want to pull on the eye of the needle as you condition the thread. I like to hold my thread just behind the eye of the needle. I lay my thumb on my wax and I just draw it across there. Conditioning the thread helps to keep the thread from tangling as you are working. In the case of some stitches, it will actually make your thread a little bit sticky. So that you get a firmer hand to your finished project. You can pull your thread a little bit tighter that way. So we have our needle threaded, we have our thread conditioned and we are ready to start stitching. That's with all of our seed bead stitches, we are going to start with a stop bead. Stop bead does exactly what it sounds like. It is going to stop our beads from falling off the thread as we start our first row. So we are going to put on -- I like to use the bead that's entirely different from those I am stitching with. So that I know it's my stop bead and I don't confuse it for part of my pattern. I am stringing it on, I am giving a little tension around my finger, I am going to stitch the needle back through the bead, trapping that little bead in a circle of thread. That will allow this bead to slide back and forth which will come in handy later on, when we want to take it off and also help us with our retention.

So that is our general information about seed beading. In the next clip, we are going to learn how to do peyote stitch.