Hand Beading on Fabric with Bugle Beads and Single Stitch

A wonderful way to add some extra beauty to your quilts is with hand beading. Hand beading is very, very simple, there's only five basic stitches. And once you get those down you can add anything you want to, to your quilts. On this piece we see a couple of those different stitches. The bugle stitch using bugle beads, and the stack stitch using multiple beads and fancy beads. On this next little quilt, we've kind of just thrown some bugle beads around on the top of this leaf, so they're just scattered, and then stitched them on with a single stitch. On this little quilt, we've used a back stitch and a fill of beads in the center of the flower, and then a single stitch out here with single beads in the background area. In this little quilt, we've used a back stitch and swirl in the center of each of the flowers, and then some bugle beads and seed beads and single stitch, that look like berries near the leaves. This whole quilt is nothing but beads. It's just circles and lines made with bugle beads and seed beads in a couple of different sizes, and then a few specialty beads. It was then hand quilted and mounted. All of this stitching that's done here is a single stitch or a bugle bead stitch. In this quilt, the beads were added, to add added interest and visual and tactile texture to the piece. It's done with a back stitch, and with a stacking stitch and stacking stitch here also. Then I used beads here for the hanging apparatus, and wire. It's a great way to really show off the beads that are on the quilt. I'm in the process of quilting, excuse me, of beading this quilt right now. And I think it's really helping to show off the circles. I've used a fill stitch here and a back stitch with seed beads and then some bugle beads and some single stitch in the circles. So let me show you how this is done. The supplies that you'll need to add beading to your quilts are pretty simple. You'll need a supply of beads, something to sew them on with and some good needles. I usually use Nymo thread when I'm sewing beads to my quilts. It's a very thin, very strong thread. But you can also use hand quilting thread if you have a lot of that in your stash. You need a really good needle. I like to use milliners needles, but you can also use beading needles, they're made for beading especially. And you can use applicate needles. You just want to make sure that they're very long and thin and that the eye isn't too big to get through your beads. The beads that I work with the most are seed beads and bugle beads, but there's lots of different types of beads out there. Here we have some translucent seed beads, some metallic seed beads, a larger seed bead, round beads, diamond shaped beads, and long bugles. Now I'll show you some of the basic stitches for beading on fabric. Here I've got a quilted piece here, and you want to make sure that when you're using a quilt and you're beading on it, that the knots don't show and the stitches don't show through on the back. So you're always gonna be working through the center layer or into the batting, rather than going all the way through to the back layer. The simplest of stitches is the back stitch. And here I've got it started using the metallic seed beads. I'm going to load five beads onto my needle and you see I've got a piece of fabric underneath the beads. This is a bead mat, and it holds onto the beads so that they don't fly away. Because if you do this on a regular piece of fabric, the needle will pop the beads up. So I've loaded five beads onto my thread, and I'm going to push them back to the other beads that are already on there, and hold them in place. Then take the needle down underneath and come up three beads back. And that's why it's called a back stitch. So now my thread is three beads back, and I'm gonna bring it, the needle back through the last three beads. And when I do that and pull, it straightens out that line. It's like putting a knot every few beads. It makes it much more secure. So let me show you that one more time. See that bead hop? So five beads. Now, if I was using bigger seed beads, I'd only put on three beads. So I'm gonna snug them up to the row that's already sewn on, take my needle tip down, right at the end of that last bead, back through the batting, two or three beads worth, pull it through, and then back through the beads. The last three, and that snugs down the bead line. So that's called a back stitch and it's the way you'd put on beads that you're stitching in a row. Now for a single stitch, I'm gonna go through the batting and bring the needle out, a little ways away, and I'ma put one bead on. And I'm simply going to put my needle back about a bead's width away from where I brought it out. And that's a single stitch. Couldn't be any easier. Now my needle is out where I'd like to put another bead. I'm gonna keep adding beads and bringing my needle out, where I want to add the next bead. One of the things that I like to do, is after I've sewn on about three beads, or three sections of beads, I will then take a little tiny knot in the surface, and slip my needle through. Now that knot would show except that I'm gonna cover it with a bead right now. This is important because if you were to lose one bead, all of them don't fall off, just the ones that are between one knot and another. So that's the single stitch. The next thing I want to show you is the stack stitch, and there's two different types of stacks stitches. This one here is one bead stacked on top of another. And these are stacked beads that actually form a loop. So with the stack stitch here, I'm simply gonna put two beads on, one large seed bead and then a smaller bead. I'm gonna hold onto the smaller bead and let the large bead go down to the base of the quilt. I'm not gonna go through the small bead a second time, but I am gonna go through the large bead a second time. And I'm gonna try to go through about where it came out in the first place. I'm going to put the needle through the batting, and bring it out where I want to set the next stack. When I pull, the top bead will snug down to the bottom bead. So let me show you that again. Large bead first, then small bead. Let the large bead go down to the surface of the quilt. Don't go through the small bead a second time, but go through the large bead a second time. Go into the batting and bring the tip of the needle out where you want the next stack and then pull, and the top bead will snug down. So that's a basic stacking technique. These here, are a rolled or a looped stack. And for that technique, and this is a wonderful way to really add a bulky texture to something like the center of a flower. Here I'm doing it in a row. I'm going to take three beads that are all the same size. They could be different colors. Let them all fall down to the surface of the quilt. I'm going to take a stitch with my needle, just one bead's width away, from where the needle came out, angle it over to where I want to start my next stack, and then pull. What this does, is makes them stack on top of each other and raise off the surface. So I'll show you that one more time. Simply loading three beads, but only taking a stitch that's one beat across, one beat width, so that the beads will lay on top of each other in an arc. Pull, and there's an arc. You can also do this same stitch on the edge of a quilt after you've put the binding on, and then it's called a picot stitch. The last thing we have is playing with bugle beads. And bugle beads are really fun to work with. I like to put a seed bead on the end, but you can do this same technique with just the bugle bead. Now this is a straight bugle bead stitch. And again, remember that we don't want to take the thread to the back of the quilt. So everything's done through the surface of the quilt. So I'm gonna load up a seed bead, and then a bugle, and then another seed bead. Take them back down to the surface of the quilt. Now, I want to put my needle down, right here on the edge, and the rows show me where it needs to be. And then I'm gonna take it through the batting to the other side, where I want the next bugle bead to start. So pull all the way through, and now I'm in position for the next one. So let me show you that again. A seed bead, then a bugle bead, and then a seed bead, down to the surface. The needle goes down on the edge here, and goes back over to the opposite side where I want the next bugle bead to start. Make sure that you leave yourself space for the bugle beads in between. And there we go. What I use most often though is the staggered or angled bugle bead stitch. It's a lot of fun. And here I'm using the same beads with a bugle bead and two seed beads. So the seed bead first, then the bugle, then the seed, and lay it down. Now, this is where you kind of have to pay some attention because you're not really working in a line. So you have to snug the bead up, really close and tight, and then figure out where the needle goes down. It wants to go down right at the end of the bugle bead or the seed bead, and then through the batting, back to where you want to start the next one, and it's gonna be at an angle. So there we go. So now I'm ready to put the next one on. A seed bead, and then a bugle, and then a seed bead. And again, snugging that down, and putting the needle in to the batting, sliding it through and then bringing it up where you want the next bugle bead to start. And again, I'm gonna put a knot, about every third section that I sew on, so that I know if one bead gets pulled off, not the whole design comes off just a few rows. And that's the staggered bugle bead. With these few simple steps you can put beads on any quilt that you want. Make sure that you don't see the stitches on the back, and they're not washable in the washing machine when you're done. But they're absolutely stunning hanging on your wall. They reflect light beautifully, and they just really add some nice pizzazz to your quilts.