My Bloody Valentine

I took well over a month to complete the Ethereal Shawl, since it was the Most Frustrating Project Ever. I knit. I frogged. I swore. I knit some more. I swore some more. And I have no idea why it was so frakking hard, because the pattern itself was not that difficult, no more so than Frozen Leaves – I just had one problem after another doing it, and nearly gave up more than once.

Finally, at long last, it’s done, in Knit Picks Shimmer, colorway Sherry, with 6/0 seed beads in a translucent pearly bronze, and here are the pictures to prove it.

Beading Tutorial

I have done several beaded projects now, and have tried a couple of different methods of beading to see what I like best. I’ve been doing a variation of the Dental Floss Method on my Ethereal Shawl, using a sewing needle and thread, and I promised a quick tutorial to some of the folks in the Beginning Lace Knitters, so here it is. If you want to see the pictures bigger, just click em and they’ll embiggen for you.

What you’re trying to do with any beading method (other than pre-stringing your yarn with beads) is to somehow get a loop of yarn (your stitch) through your bead. And while you could just poke your stitch at the bead and hope it goes through, it will take you a very, very long time, assuming you have the eyesight and coordination to want to try it in the first place (I don’t).

So what you need to do is use some kind of tool to pull the loop through the bead. Crochet hooks are good, if you have appropriately teeny crochet hooks, and if you have the patience to try and catch your loop on a nearly invisible hook (again, I don’t).

Or you can use thread (or dental floss) to pull a stitch through a bead…