Shaping Bead Work with Increases/Decreases in Square Stitch

Today we are continuing to advance our skills in the Square Stitch technique. 

This tutorial is based on the premise that you are familiar with stitch and understand the thread path in a project or sample of bead work. Check out Square Stitch Basics to get started with this stitch. 

The techniques are pretty straightforward and easy to follow. 

You can use these techniques to create flat shapes of bead work such as a 2-D Butterfly, Diamonds and much more. 

You also use the decrease technique to create tapering bands on bracelets and necklaces. 

Tools and Materials

I added my affiliate links above to the items I prefer to use when beading. 

You can use any size or color beads you prefer. You can even use just one color. 

The beads do not have to be Delica beads but this stitch works really well with them. Round seed beads work just fine and the technique is exactly the same. 

The Techniques

Here is a quick video tutorial to walk you through the steps for increasing and decreasing square stitch bead work. 

Watch to the end to see how I adjusted the increase to be the exact same on both ends of the work.

That is all there is to it. It is fairly simple to add shaping to a square stitch project, so play around with these techniques and have fun.

In the final post for the Square Stitch portion of Bead Weaving 101, we will exlpore the Tubular Square Stitch plus the advanced techniques of increasing and decreasing and adding variations to the the stitch.

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