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Type | Bead weaving stitch |
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Place of origin | American, Africa, the Middle East, and South America. |
Brick Stitch, also known as the Cheyenne Stitch or Comanche Stitch, is a bead weaving stitch in which individual beads are stacked horizontally in the same pattern as bricks are stacked in a wall.
The technique has been used by Native Americans and in Africa, the Middle East and South America. Guatemalan examples use beads of size 22/0 and smaller. [1]
This is an off-loom technique perfected by Native Americans. It is a relative of another off-loom technique called peyote stitch or gourd stitch. [2] A brick stitch pattern can be worked as a peyote stitch pattern if turned through 90 degrees.
Brick stitch is different from other stitches in bead weaving as the beads are attached to the thread in between the beads, not to the last bead added, as in other stitches, or to beads in the previous rows. [3]
There are many variations of brick stitch in bead weaving. These include flat brick stitch, circular brick stitch or tubular brick stitch. [4] A popular use of brick stitch is to bead around a component, be it a closed jump ring or another larger bead. [5]
It is easy to increase and decrease in brick stitch by skipping a thread bridge or forcing two beads into one thread bridge, making it a versatile stitch to shape bead work with. [6]
Beadwork is the art or craft of attaching beads to one another by stringing them onto a thread or thin wire with a sewing or beading needle or sewing them to cloth. Beads are produced in a diverse range of materials, shapes, and sizes, and vary by the kind of art produced. Most often, beadwork is a form of personal adornment, but it also commonly makes up other artworks.
A bead is a small, decorative object that is formed in a variety of shapes and sizes of a material such as stone, bone, shell, glass, plastic, wood, or pearl and with a small hole for threading or stringing. Beads range in size from under 1 millimeter (0.039 in) to over 1 centimeter (0.39 in) in diameter.
Bead weaving is a set of techniques for weaving sheets and objects of seed beads. Threads are strung through and/or around the beads to hold them together. It can be done either on a loom or using one of a number of off-loom stitches.
Needlepoint is a type of canvas work, a form of embroidery in which yarn is stitched through a stiff open weave canvas. Traditionally needlepoint designs completely cover the canvas. Although needlepoint may be worked in a variety of stitches, many needlepoint designs use only a simple tent stitch and rely upon color changes in the yarn to construct the pattern. Needlepoint is the oldest form of canvas work.
Bead stringing is the putting of beads on string.
Seed beads or rocailles are uniformly shaped, spheroidal beads ranging in size from under a millimeter to several millimeters. Seed bead is also a generic term for any small bead. Usually rounded in shape, seed beads are most commonly used for loom and off-loom bead weaving. They may be used for simple stringing, or as spacers between other beads in jewelry.
Darning is a sewing technique for repairing holes or worn areas in fabric or knitting using needle and thread alone. It is often done by hand, but using a sewing machine is also possible. Hand darning employs the darning stitch, a simple running stitch in which the thread is "woven" in rows along the grain of the fabric, with the stitcher reversing direction at the end of each row, and then filling in the framework thus created, as if weaving. Darning is a traditional method for repairing fabric damage or holes that do not run along a seam, and where patching is impractical or would create discomfort for the wearer, such as on the heel of a sock.
The peyote stitch, also known as the gourd stitch, is an off-loom bead weaving technique. Peyote stitch may be worked with either an even or an odd number of beads per row. Both even and odd count peyote pieces can be woven as flat strips, in a flat round shape, or as a tube. Tubular peyote is used to make pouches or to decorate objects such as bottles or fan handles.
Knitted fabric is a textile that results from knitting, the process of inter-looping of yarns or inter-meshing of loops. Its properties are distinct from woven fabric in that it is more flexible and can be more readily constructed into smaller pieces, making it ideal for socks and hats.
A selvage or selvedge is a "self-finished" edge of a piece of fabric which keeps it from unraveling and fraying. The term "self-finished" means that the edge does not require additional finishing work, such as hem or bias tape, to prevent fraying.
The manufacture of textiles is one of the oldest of human technologies. To make textiles, the first requirement is a source of fiber from which a yarn can be made, primarily by spinning. The yarn is processed by knitting or weaving, with color and patterns, which turns it into cloth. The machine used for weaving is the loom. For decoration, the process of coloring yarn or the finished material is dyeing. For more information of the various steps, see textile manufacturing.
African textiles are textiles from various locations across the African continent. Across Africa, there are many distinctive styles, techniques, dyeing methods, and decorative and functional purposes. These textiles hold cultural significance and also have significance as historical documents of African design.
Bead crochet is a crochet technique that incorporates beads into a crochet fabric. The technique is used to produce decorative effects in women's fashion accessories. The word "crochet" is derived from the French "croche" or "croc" meaning "to hook". Published descriptions of bead crochet date from around 1824 although it was probably common before then. At one time, bead crochet was thought by some people to be appropriate only for rich people.
Walco Bead Co. was one of the largest bead companies in the United States of America, Africa, China, and Canada at the start of the 1900s. It was a landmark in New York's "bead alley" at 37 West 37th Street.
Square stitch is an off-loom bead weaving stitch that mimics the appearance of beadwork created on a loom. Loom patterns and even cross stitch embroidery patterns may be used for square stitch pieces. Because each bead in a square stitch piece is connected by thread to each of the four beads surrounding it, this stitch is very strong.
Teri Greeves is a Native American beadwork artist, living in Santa Fe, New Mexico. She is enrolled in the Kiowa Indian Tribe of Oklahoma.
Bead embroidery is a type of beadwork that uses a needle and thread to stitch beads to a surface of fabric, suede, or leather.
Right-angle weave stitch, also known as RAW, is an off-loom bead weaving technique. Beads are stitched together with thread only making right angle turns, hence the name. The result is an almost fabric like piece of beadwork. Right-angle weave can be woven with either one needle or two. With single needle right-angle weave, the thread path moves in a figure-eight pattern. For double needle right-angle weave, the threads cross each other along the center bead of each stitch as they head in opposite directions. RAW can be formed into flat pieces, tubes, or 3 dimensional figures. There are also variations on the basic stitch like cubic right angle weave (CRAW) and prismatic right angle weave (PRAW). Seed beads, fire polished beads and crystal beads are common choices in pieces using right-angle weave.
String is a long flexible structure made from fibers twisted together into a single strand, or from multiple such strands which are in turn twisted together. String is used to tie, bind, or hang other objects. It is also used as a material to make things, such as textiles, and in arts and crafts. String is a simple tool, and its use by humans is known to have been developed tens of thousands of years ago. In Mesoamerica, for example, string was invented some 20,000 to 30,000 years ago, and was made by twisting plant fibers together. String may also be a component in other tools, and in devices as diverse as weapons, musical instruments, and toys.
Jackie Larson Bread is a Native American beadwork artist from the Blackfeet Reservation in Browning, Montana. Her interest in bead work was sparked from looking at her late-grandmother's beaded pieces. In awe of these objects, Bread self-taught herself how to bead when she was younger and now, she has been beading for more than 20 years. Continuing through trial and error, Bread has received numerous awards for her beading.