Beading: Flat Herringbone Stitch

This Herringbone Stitch or Ndebele Stitch bead weaving article is meant for beginners as well as anyone looking for a quick memory refresh. First the refresher, then the tutorials.

 

As a mnemonic aid, it is useful to know that Herringbone stitch gets its name from how the pattern resembles fishbones. This stitch is also commonly found in embroidery and knitting.

Herringbone Stitch: Refresher/Memory Joggers

Beading

• foundation (starting) row is made up of Ladder Stitch
• even number of beads per row
• each row thereafter, beads are worked in pairs

Characteristics of Herringbone or Ndebele Stitch

Tip: Having swatches or samples of various stitches is always a good idea. It helps determine which stitch might be the most appropriate.

The Ndebele/Flat Herringbone stitch is:

• quite rigid, row-wise
• very flexible, length-wise

Herringbone Good For

The herringbone stitch lends itself very well to increases and decreases. This characteristic makes it wonderful for:

• making frills
• creating various shapes

Refer: how to make increases in Herringbone Stitch.

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Quick Revision Summary on How to Make the Flat Herringbone Stitch

Tips and Tricks to the Herringbone/Ndebele Stitch

The “tricks” in the Herringbone stitch comes at the end and start of each row. Remember to:

Tip: Neatening and Tightening the Edges

This is optional. The ending edge of the herringbone stitch might seem a bit loose and “fray-ish”. You can easily tighten this edge by weaving your thread along the penultimate row of beads.

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Tutorials on how to do the Herringbone Stitch

There are a number of these tutorials out there. So I am not going to bother to write another one from scratch. However I have researched what I think are the easiest and the clearest.

Leslie Rogalski’s Flat Herringbone Stitch (from Artbeads)

The first part of this tutorial where she draws on a graph to show how the threads are woven is especially useful and clear.

However the rest of the tutorial is a bit different from how I do it. I find it a bit confusing and less satisfying as 2 rows of herringbone are made before tightening occurs. Hence the work is floppy for a longer time (which is always no fun). But the first part of the video is very clear and recommended.

The accompanying Flat Herringbone Stitch pdf file – written instructions with diagrams (from ArtBeads) is also very useful.

In particular, it shows diagrammatically and clearly, how to begin a new row (as discussed in the Tips and Tricks section above).

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Basic Herringbone Stitch (from FusionBeads)

This Basic Herringbone Stitch tutorial – is will laid out, with clear steps and diagrams. There is also a printer friendly version.

The only downside to this tutorial is that the way they do their new rows leaves  the thread showing on the outside beads. Not so neat and tidy. So I would still recommend the method above (in Tips & Tricks section) of starting a new row.

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See Reference section below for more related topics and relevant tutorials or view “Herringbone Stitch – How to Increase“.

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