Beads

New design: Brick stitch

shaped motifs, row by row ✿

Difficulty

Add your own photo

Shown on this design's card and pattern page, for example a photo of the finished piece. Without one, the chart is used.

Bead colours

On a keyboard, press 1 to 9 to switch colour.

Colour 10 beads

Bead type

Round seed 11/0: about 2 mm across (manufacturer's figure). The chart draws every bead the same size, so make a small sample to check the real size.

Brick stitch

How it's made: Each new bead hangs from a loop of thread between two beads of the row before, not from the beads themselves.

The chart: Rows shifted half a bead, like a brick wall.

New beads hook onto the thread of the row before.

Check-up

fixNo beads placed yet.

Status & sharing

I've made this with real beads and it worked Until you tick this, the design is labelled “Unverified” everywhere.

Drafts are saved on this device. to keep them everywhere and share them with the community.

Mirror

Row 18 beads · start row

Left end

Right end

Row 1 is at the top. The picked row is outlined and the tinted row is the one you start with. A + marks an end that steps out past the row worked before it, a − one that steps in. Tap a row number to pick that row.

Rows at the top

Rows at the bottom

8 rows

To see an estimated finished size, choose “My own size” under Bead type and enter your bead's measurements.

finished look · a sketch, not to scale

place a few beads and they'll show up here ✿

Stitching details for when you're ready to stitch

You begin with row 1 (tinted on the chart) and work outwards from it. A flat piece often begins with a ladder-stitched row, and starting at a wide row can make shaping easier. It's your choice: pick any row and press “Start from this row”.

Each new bead hangs from a thread of the row before, not from the bead below it. At the ends of a row, the bridge you start or finish on decides whether that end steps out or in.

Your notes (how you'll work the ends, and how you'll finish)

This chart shows the outline and the colours only. It doesn't draw the thread path, so check your edge stitches against a tutorial you trust and bead a small sample first.

Brick stitch, step by step

Brick stitch grows from a first row made with ladder stitch. After that, every bead hooks onto a little bridge of thread between two beads of the row before, so each row sits half a bead across from the last.

bead added in this stepalready in placethread bridge

1Begin a ladder. Pick up two beads. Go through both again in the same direction and pull, so they sit side by side with their holes pointing up.
2Lengthen the ladder. Add one bead at a time: pick it up, go back through the bead before it, then through the new bead again. Make this first row as wide as your chart's starting row.
3Start the next row with two beads. Pick up two beads. Pass the needle under the thread bridge between two beads of the row below, then come back up through the second bead you picked up.
4Then one bead per bridge. Pick up one bead, pass under the next bridge, and come back up through that same bead. Repeat along the row.
5The row is done. The new row sits half a bead across from the one below, like bricks in a wall, and has its own bridges ready for the next row.
6Turn and keep going. Work the next row back the other way, starting with two beads again. Which bridge the first pair lands on decides whether the edge steps in or out: follow the edge marks on your chart.

Good to know

Always catch the bridge of thread, never the bead itself.
Charts for brick stitch are read with the bead holes pointing up, which is why each bead is drawn taller than it is wide.
If the first two beads of a row tip over, go down through the first and up through the second once more to lock them.

This shows how the stitch works in general. It is not a thread path for any particular design.