Adding Beads with a Sewing Needle
Jun 25th, 2009 by Jhonne Jones
I’ve been adding beads to my knitting using a sewing needle and thread to help get the beads on my yarn. I’m putting up a video for anyone who might be interested in seeing how I’ve been doing it.
I put a slightly weighted object at the end of my thread (just regular sewing thread), so it doesn’t matter how many beads are on it for it to have a bit of tension while working with it. I also dulled the tip of my needle a bit with a fingernail file so I didn’t poke myself and get blood on my knitting.
I hold the thread between my little finger and ring finger so I can pick it up quickly when working a lot of beads on a row. If you use a magnetic board, you can also drop the needle onto one of your magnets and it will hold it there until you are ready for it.
One of the advantages of this method is that you don’t have to accommodate the crochet hook and the yarn when trying to put the bead on. You also don’t have to worry about splitting your yarn or dropping a stitch.
I worked one bead after I knit the stitch, one before I knit the stitch and another one after I knit the stitch. The advantage of knitting the stitch first is that you can adjust the tension of the stitch to accommodate the bead. It will also sit where it looks like it is on a chart. If you place the bead before you knit it, you are actually putting it one row below where it shows on the chart.
Here is a picture showing that placement:
One Response to “Adding Beads with a Sewing Needle”
Nice video and explanation–and I like the photo of how the bead placement looks. I do almost exactly the same thing but with the floss. It’s nice to realize you can do it with needle and thread if the floss isn’t handy!