Basic Stitch Tutorial - Ladder Stitch

Today's basic stitch tutorial is ladder stitch, which is a very useful technique to learn. Incredibly easy to do, it often forms the basis for many other stitches, including herringbone and brick stitch.

You can work ladder stitch using one or more beads, but for the purpose of this tutorial I'm making a strip that's two beads high (this is sometimes called a two bead stack). If you need to make a strip one bead high, simply pick up one bead at a time instead of two.

Thread your needle with a comfortable length of thread and pick up a stop bead. Leaving about an 8" tail, sew through the stop bead once or twice more being careful not to split the thread. The stop bead is optional but it will help to keep the beads positioned as you work.

Pick up 4 seed beads, slide them down to the stop bead and sew through the first 2 seed beads in the same direction...



Pull the thread snug, positioning the beads so that the two pairs sit side by side and sew back down through the second pair...



Pick up 2 more seed beads and sew down through the adjacent pair of beads...



Sew back up through the pair you just added...



Continue in this way, picking up 2 beads at a time until the strip is as wide as you need.



Don't forget to check back next week when I'll be using this ladder stitch strip as a base for herringbone :)