I’ve spent almost two days swatching the mohair with beads, looking for something to trip my trigger.
First there was the trip to the basement to recover the beads. This is not a finished basement so there are creaks and moans galore, not to mention cobwebs, dust and the charming scent of damp stone. I felt as though I were in the opening scene of an Indiana Jones movie and expected a descending boulder or a whirled blade to put an end to me at any moment.
After that, the beads had to be sorted as to color. Obviously I wanted something that would look good with the periwinkle of the yarn. The bead color and the yarn color should accentuate and enhance one another. The bead color should not look like a blob of Grey Poupon on an evening gown.
There are three basic ways of adding beads to your knitting (aside of just sewing them on afterwards). For the first two methods, pre-stringing the yarn is necessary so that when you get to a place where you want a bead you can slide the bead up the yarn and either knit or slip it into place. Let me tell you, stringing beads on yarn is not fun. At all. Eventually, however, I prevailed enough to produce these swatches:
Bead all that you can bead...
Then I remembered the gorgeous Schaeffer Anne in the stash. Much finer yarn and maybe better suited to small beads?
Then again, maybe not...
I gave up on the bead idea. It’s not a bad one and I’m sure I’ll haul it out again if for no other reason than that I can no more resist little bits of colored glass than I can resist beautifully colored yarn. Maybe then I’ll have enough sense to get beads that are a better size for the yarn I’m using. And yes, I did have some that might have worked but I didn’t have enough of them.
So, last night around ten, I got to thinking that the Lace and Agate (see link in last Friday’s post - 6/17) scarf is truly beautiful - but what if you used a single instance of the razor-shell lace on either side to border something else? Would that look good?
Sea Scarf
Now I’m going to make some more coffee :)
No trackbacks yet.
ooh, a basement adventure- i miss dank basementy smells- in this area there are no basements so everything gets stored in ‘sheds’- going to dig around in a shed for stored treasure just doesn’t have the appeal of entering a nice gloomy basement knowing you will uncover forgotten goodies-
i think one of the most intimidating instructions that can be found is the line that says ‘first, string 3 gazillion beads’! you are right about the size of yours though- if you are going to the trouble of stringing and knitting the things, they should at least show up!
stay happy-
Not that I take pleasure in the suffering of others, but it’s reassuring to see that I’m not the only one having bead issues right now. =) I’ve been struggling to get a potential new bead pattern to work out right and I’m about at wits end with it. For the time being I’ve switched to working on a beaded amulet kit hoping that it’ll get me back into the feel of working with the thread and beads without the frustration of figuring everything out on my own.
And yes, that scarf is simply stunning.
Barb - Yep, that’s right up there with “cast on 457 stitches, long-tail”.
Run away! Run away!!!!
Erin - Thanks :) I haven’t regularly beaded for a while now, but I remember how difficult I found reading a peyote stitch pattern. I finally gave up, turned ‘em sideways and did ‘em in brick stitch instead :)
Too bad your beads didn’t work out. But the first attempt looks like you were about to make a VERY TINY bikini
CRAP! I wasn’t done.
OK. Now I’m done! 
Laurie - LOL! Never occurred to me but I can see how you might get that impression. Good Lord! A mohair bikini? Yikes!
Ooooh, I like the last one quite a bit. Even more so finding out the day of the calendar - my birthday :-) Carry on!
Kathy - Well happy birthday kiddo! Sorry, you can’t have the scarf :)
Whew! Glad you came through the bead venture none the worse for wear. Take heart - at least all the swatching taught you exactly what NOT to do next time. I’m sure when you pull out beads & yarn again you’ll hit on just the thing the very first time. :)
Yep - the Sea Scarf looks fantastic. :)
Bron - Thanks :) I’m very happy with the pattern combination and it does seem to be working out nicely.
It was still a mistake to haul out all the beads and findings though, because now I want to bead :)
