Saturday 23 April 2011

Basic Stitch Tutorial - Spiral Rope

Another of my favourites and a very popular stitch among beaders is spiral rope. Also known as spiral rope chain, spiral staircase or spiral stitch, it is very versatile and you can make it as simple or as embellished as you like.

There are two sets of beads in spiral rope, the core beads and the outer beads. The core beads run through the centre of the rope, these are usually the same colour and size throughout. The outer beads spiral around the core beads and can be one colour and bead type or a combination of several. You can achieve a multitude of different effects simply by changing the combination of colours, sizes and types of beads you use.

For this tutorial I'm making a very simple rope using size 11 seed beads with 3 outer beads over 4 core beads.

1. With a comfortable length of thread, pick up 4 core beads and three outer beads. Slide them down the thread leaving a tail of about 8-10".



2. Sew through the 4 core beads once more, in the same direction.



3. Position the beads so that the outer beads are on the left.



4. Pick up 1 core bead and three outer beads. Keeping the first set of outer beads pushed to the left, sew through the top 3 core beads.



5. Sew through the single core bead that you just added before pulling the thread snug.



Repeat steps 4 and 5 until the rope is as long as you need, pushing the outer beads to the left each time.





Note: You can push the outer beads to the right if your prefer, just make sure you push them all in the same direction throughout the rope.

Here are a few finished ropes in various colours...



I hope you've enjoyed this tutorial, please leave a comment if you have any questions or tips you'd like to share!

12 comments:

June said...

Sounds easy enough? Will have to try it out, to see if it can be that simple. Will it work as well with 15/0 beads?

Sally Anderson said...

This looks pretty easy! I'll try it soon! Thanks.

Artisticat said...

How do you finish it off???

Anonymous said...

I've tried this and it came out awesome,so pretty!! Thank you so much for this tutorial,looked easy and IS easy to do :)

Anonymous said...

My pleasure Chrissy, I'm glad you enjoyed it!

Goodness said...

I can't get my ropes to look neatly

Anonymous said...

Hi this is Debbie from Barbican beaders. I would like to know if you can join the ends together to form a circle for a bangle.

Unknown said...

Beautiful;i am goting to try it too.

Unknown said...

Beautiful;i am goting to try it too.

kathy said...

Is there a sign-up or somewhere I can sign-up for emails
Kfreddss

Anonymous said...

Very easy and effective. Please advise how to neatly join to form a circle.

Anonymous said...

Best tutorial I’ve seen!!! Some of the others on Pinterest look so difficult and when I see them they don’t even make sense. I’ve made a lot of spiral ropes and your tutorial show how even a first timer can easily make a beautiful spiral!