Bead Crochet

Bead crochet revisited- a new technique for graphed designs and more.

Normally, beads are crocheted into the fabric from the wrong side of the work. When working in crocheted rows, beads can only be attached every other row. By inserting the hook from back to front, you can now work rows of bead crochet with beads on every row.

The reverse side of a single crochet stitch is a horizontal bar sitting over 2 legs, similar to the Greek letter π (pi). A bead single crochet is worked in one of 2 ways: either moving the bead up before the crochet loop is drawn up and attaching the bead to the first leg of the stitch, or after the loop has been drawn up and attaching the bead to the second leg of the single crochet. For the beads to line up correctly, the single crochet rows have to be on a different leg than the back-to-front crochet rows. In my designs, I have placed the bead on a single crochet before the loop is drawn up, and on a back-to-front stitch the bead is drawn up after the thread loop has been drawn up. In this way, all the beads are on the same side of the crochet stitches when working in rows.

Since the bead is not really on the stitch but to the side, this causes the design to be off-center unless you add a stitch to the side where the bead is overlapping. Use a pin or a stitch marker to mark this side so you are reminded to work the extra stitch.

Getting started: Choose beads that will slide easily on your yarn and are not too big for the stitches. Pony beads (6x 9mm) work with worsted, Czech 6/0 beads work well with sport yarn (6/0 beads from Japan have larger holes and the beads do not sit as well), 8/0 beads work with #10 crochet cotton, and standard 11/0 seed beads work with size 20 crochet thread.

Roll your yarn or thread into balls, starting a new ball whenever you encounter a knot. This can be tedious, but you don’t want to thread your beads and find them bumped up against a surprise knot.

Threading the beads: Thread a needle with thread that is much thinner than the yarn you are using and pick up the beads. Once all the beads are threaded, tie the thin thread to the end of the crochet thread/yarn, and push the beads onto the thicker thread. Then untie the thin thread and you are ready to proceed. If your project is worked in pieces, only thread the beads you need for the piece you are constructing.

If you are threading more than one color, you need to thread the beads in the correct sequence. Start at the first row of beads and thread them in the direction of your stitches for the first row, and the opposite direction for the next row. Continue to alternate in this fashion until all the beads are threaded. The butterfly pattern that follows is symmetrical so the color sequence on every row is the same in each direction, which is easier. You now have the beads threaded in reverse order. At this point, I strongly recommend checking your work to make sure it is accurate before moving the beads to the working yarn. If you have made a mistake, simply cut the thin thread, adjust the beads as necessary, and knot the ends of the thin thread. Then tie the thin thread to the working yarn and push all the beads onto the yarn as stated above.

Making your own designs: Since your beads line up like a graph, you can use graphed designs from filet crochet or beadwork to make your own bead crochet projects. Computer spreadsheet programs such as Microsoft Excel can be used to make custom graph paper; if your stitches are shorter than they are wide, you can make graph paper with flattened boxes instead of squares. Finally, while you would normally use an “x”, “o”, or a color fill to represent a stitch, consider using a “1” on a computer spreadsheet if you are working with one color of beads. That way, you can highlight the beaded area on the graph and you will obtain an exact bead count!