St Petersburg Chain: Easy to love

Every artist has aspects of his craft which he loves and aspects of which he isn't so fond. It's been my experience among beadweaving artists that every beadweaver faces frustration with at least a stitch or two and finds themselves drawn back again and again to one or two stitches which they absolutely love.  In this post,  I'm going to talk about a stitch I keep coming back to:  St Petersburg Chain.

This isn't a tutorial.  I may post a tutorial on St Petersburg Chain later on,  but in this post I just want to talk about why I love this stitch and how using it has influenced my work.

St Petersburg Chain is,  like most beadweaving stitches,  a versatile stitch once the artist has gained familiarity with it.  In form,  it's a variation of ladder stitch or square stitch,  but it works up far more quickly than either of those stitches.  For me,  one of the most exciting aspects of St Petersburg Chain is how readily it invites the use of accent colors and beads. The necklace and earring set below demonstrates how varying accents along the outer edge and along the inner edge can be utilized to draw the eye to a particular part of the finished piece.

Another feature of St Petersburg Chain that makes it such a staple of my portfolio is how the stitch can be intentionally made part of the background impression of the piece or the focus of the piece itself.  The first bracelet below has a St Petersburg Chain strap in shades of green to encourage the viewer to identify the focal as a flower,  and the uniformity and symmetry of the strap allows the viewer to easily become interested in the focal accent, which is the important part of the bracelet.  The second bracelet below uses a feature of double St Petersburg Chain---namely,  its shared accent beads along the inside of the doubled stitch---to draw attention to the weave itself.

St Petersburg Chain can be used to create a sense of daintiness or call up a bolder impression.  For example,  the necklace set below has large seed beads,  an over-sized clasp,  and an unmissable focal pendant,  all of which combine to generate a "chunkier", more emotionally-forward jewelry set.

This stitch looks great in any shape of seed bead,  making it a playground for creative color, size,  and bead shape experimentation.  St Petersburg Chain is also easy to connect to other pieces of beadweaving,  making components designed in this stitch versatile as additions to a larger work.

One of the truly remarkable things this stitch has taught me is that it's entirely reasonable to pick my colors and beads first and settle on a stitch for the work later on.  If no other stitch seems to accommodate my choices,  I frequently turn to St Petersburg Chain.  It's very forgiving of unusually-shaped beads and generously permits a large palette of colors while encouraging me to experiment with new combinations,  variations,  and ideas.  The speed at which I can build a sample to test my ideas makes it an excellent stitch within which to fiddle with color combinations even when the final piece is executed entirely without St Petersburg Chain.

Of course,  St Petersburg Chain does have certain quirks which can push its difficulty out of beginner level and into intermediate level.  Maintaining uniform tension is difficult in this stitch,  owing to the fact that one segment is not connected to its adjacent mate immediately when it's added.  It's also a stitch that requires a ton of thread passes,  so that beads with relatively small holes (such as Czech Preciosa seed beads or Miyuki 15/0 Rocailles) can quickly become too tight for additional thread passes.  It can also require some practice to figure out how to follow the thread path when tying off a piece of St Petersburg Chain.  However,  a beadweaver who dedicates the time to mastering this beautiful and versatile stitch will delight in the possibilities it reveals.