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I think it was the needles, so small with such big beads on the ends…and ruby colored, my birthstone. Maybe it was the beautiful, shiny beads and the small thread. But how do we really ever describe love at first sight.  It just is.
  

I was at the Martha Pullen show in Arlington Texas at the Bag Lady Booth – www.baglady.com -  It was 1996. I took my purchases home and immediately began knitting. How to describe the feel of those tiny needles and the weight of the ends? I made tiny bags. I bought hanks of beads. I bought tiny threads. What do I do with them? Not much. I look at them when I want to feel happy. I have given a few as tiny gifts.
The bigger bag with the frame just needs to be assembled. I finished it a long time ago. (I am going to finish it now.) At first and certainly foremost, it isn’t the product, it is the process.

But alas, most of us want to make something practical…and one can really only make so many beautiful amulet bags. So I went on a search for more bead making projects. I knitted a baubled trim with beads, a prototype for a sewing project. It can be done but I haven’t completed a project with it yet (it is on my list of things to do before I die.)

I found the Knitting with Beads book by Jane Davis. I love the Cascading Diamonds Scarf. I am on my second one. It is probably just me…but I have trouble getting the bottom edge to look neat. There is a thread that spans the width of the beads at the bottom edge. In the pattern’s photo the thread lies perfectly flat at the finished end. Mine doesn’t quite do that.

I tried the old fashioned knitting with beads, where the beads are pushed into the stitch. In the modern bead knitting world, most of the time the beads are placed between the stitches. Pushing the bead into the stitch is torture for me. Maybe on a small scale it could be accomplished, but the uninitiated should not try a big project — it can quickly kill the love of bead knitting.

At the Fiber Fest in Dallas this past weekend, I stopped by the Kitting Around booth and met Lisa Willis and Lori Hirsh Taub. They had some beautiful kits and patterns, all using beads or felting, 2 of my favorite things!

I am excited to see that bead knitting didn’t just stop at the basic bags! There were fish-shaped bags, knitted stars and a whole book on bead-knitted bags. Kitting Around (www.stitchelegance.com) was out of the book at the show, so I will have to find out the name of it and order it.   I think it was this book:  http://www.amazon.com/Beadwork-Creates-Beaded-Bags-Designs/dp/1931499349/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1241038292&sr=1-1 

They did have a beautiful scarf sample using the Shell Fringe Scarf pattern by Deanna K Van Assche. They had used a ribbon yarn which gave a wonderful contrast to the beads. I can’t wait to begin some new bead projects! 

To those not in the know, I think the scariest thing about bead knitting is putting the beads on the yarn. Relax! It isn’t that hard. If the beads are already in a hank, gently pull one of the strands from the thread knot. It will come out easily. Tie a slip knot in this thread and slip it over your knitting thread.

Fold the knitting thread onto itself and begin to pass the beads from the strand to the knitting thread. Some gentleness is required at times if you get a tight bead. But it isn’t a time consuming effort. You can thread all the beads you need in 30 minutes or less.

 Beginners can easily work bead projects, as in most instances, the designs are just rows of knitting and passing beads. Not even purl stitches!

How expensive is bead knitting? That depends on the project and where you buy the beads. The Cascading Diamonds scarf calls for 1450 size 5 seed beads, or E beads. If I bought the beads from a bead store, it would cost over $100.00. Michaels has a very nice selection of E beads, and the scarf cost around $40.00 in beads. For the small bags, hanks cost around $4-6. The small bags need 1 hank and the larger bags need 2 or 2-1/2 hanks. So the investment is really quite small.   Purse Paradise http://www.purseparadise.com/ has beads for $4.00 a hank and a variety of kits. 

For the tiny projects, I highly recommend some elegant needles! Again, these don’t have to be expensive and can even be made quite inexpensively by gluing some pretty beads onto the end of the needles. This also gives some balance to the needles, and it looks so beautiful when you are working on the projects.

Have I convinced you? Do you have any other bead-knitting patterns that I should try? Let me know!