I was glancing through Carol Wilcox Wells "The Art and Elegance of Beadweaving," and saw a lovely pagoda vase made of sculptural chevron stitch. I've never been able to get the "rhythm" of chevron stitch, but I decided to use her instructions and see if I could master the sculptural version.
After noodling around for a while, I found the rhythm, and was chevroning away. I made the three row wide version, and zipped up the fourth row to make a tube. Holy guacamole! The individual rows of chevron stitch are floppy, and not really acceptable to me (I prefer things that have a little more body), but the tubes? My square piece is stiffer than a stick, and could be used as a weapon.
Right now, I'm deep into making jewelry for holiday gifts, but once January comes, I definitely see a sculptural project out of this stitch. I can see stacking the tubes like Ms. Wilcox did (but taller) and making the stack into an amazing little lamp.
Or I could just take my bead "stick" and whack people with it when they tick me off. :-)
Kathy N-V