I’ve been thinking a lot about discipline lately - you know, that thing that gets you to do the dishes, even though you’d rather work on the sock or read a book? I don’t have much. In fact, I’m far less disciplined and far more self-indulgent and impatient than I was as a younger woman.
One of the biggest reflections of this is my knitting. Not the actual knitting, of which I’m a bit proud, but the many, many projects that get started and then wander off to gather dust while I, like a grasshopper on speed, start another dozen. Oh one or two may get finished, but the rest will languish, eventually to be frogged or tossed - and it will be a long time before even that happens because I’ll be…class? That’s right - starting more projects.
Another problem is that if something doesn’t come easily to me, I’m apt to pass it by. I’ll tell myself I don’t need it, don’t really want it and it was probably sour anyway :) I had this attitude about knitting with double-pointed needles. Socks? Feh - who cares about knitting socks…I don’t need no steenking socks! Lace? Beautiful, lovely - work of art, really. Me? No, ham-handed, fumble-fingered me could never manage lace - but thank you very much for asking…
And the Universe is funny about all of this - almost perverse :) Have trouble finishing projects? Think the powers that be would bless you with a craving for small things like hats? Mitts? Baby booties? No, you’re obsessions include shawls, blankets, car cozies…. Afraid of lace? The Universe trots out the most beautiful examples of the art - pieces that should be hanging in the Louvre - and tempts you till you’re ready to stick your knitting needles in your eyes just to stop the torment!
And then it shows you lace with beads.
And then you know your crafting soul is totally and irrevocably lost…
Those of you who’ve been reading this blog for a while, may remember that I have worked knitting with beads before. There’s the Little Beaded Bag. That project involved stringing all the needed beads on your chosen yarn before the knitting even began and then utilizing a slip-stitch technique to place the beads. This isn’t difficult at all. The only problem with this technique is that while it may be perfectly fine for something like a dice bag, it’s not going to work for something finer. Stringing beads on fine yarn will do nothing but shred your yarn and the slip-stitch placement technique is too loose and not really strong enough to hold beads in place on a somewhat delicate fabric.
So then what?
The thing I had been avoiding, of course :) The thing I told myself I couldn’t do and therefore didn’t really want to do.
The technique isn’t that difficult. You use a crochet hook - a small enough one to go through the hole of your bead. You pick up a bead with the hook and insert the business end of the hook into the stitch on your left needle. Then you pull the loop of yarn through the bead, replace the loop on the needle and then knit the stitch. This fixes the bead much more firmly than the slip-stitch method and is more stable because both loops of the stitch go through the bead.
The problem for me is that I knit right-handed but I crochet left-handed. I finally realized that in order to make this work, I was going to have to manipulate the crochet hook with my right hand. So, Friday night I sat down with my tools and gave it a try. The yarn is fingering weight and the beads are size 6. I needed a size 12 crochet hook (very, very small) to get through the holes in the beads and that meant that manipulating the yarn with it was almost impossible. However, I tried it that way many times - pick up bead, insert hook into stitch and try to draw the yarn back through the bead. Each time, I split the yarn because the hook couldn’t catch the whole thickness and wound up with half the yarn on each side of the bead - a mess, in other words.
Then it occurred to me to try it another way. Instead of attempting to draw the yarn through the bead, I tried drawing the bead over the end of the hook and down onto the stitch. Okay, use the hook, pick up the bead and insert it through the stitch. Then, holding the stitch firmly down on the hook with my left hand, I then used my right thumb(nail) to scoot the bead over the yarn, off the hook and down onto the stitch.
That worked!
As it turns out, using the hook in my right hand wasn’t a big issue because I wasn’t really crocheting - just using it to hold the yarn and the bead.
I was slack-jawed with amazement. I had tried this technique many times before and gotten nowhere with it. All I had ever achieved was shredded yarn - and shredded patience.
It really, really worked!
I was so dumbfounded that when I finished the first practice piece, I started another one…
Back to what I was saying in the beginning…
I have become lazy and self-indulgent. There’s nothing wrong with designing and executing the ideas in your own head - but not when you’re using it as an excuse not to have to deal with standard patterns, methods and techniques.
I am going to finish the projects I have under way. I’m thinking specifically of the Kimono Scarf here because now that I’ve seen how the stitch pattern works, and how the multi-colored yarn and the pattern play together - it’s gotten a little boring :) This is the point where I would normally lose interest and start another project. But I’m no going to do that - I’m going to keep working on the scarf until it’s done. I am also going to try some other patterns - other than the ones in my head, I mean. And I am going to try very hard not to mess with them until they are something entirely other than what the originator intended. I will probably always be more interested in expressing what’s in my own mind and heart than reproducing what someone else’s dream might have been. However doing my own thing is different than not doing someone else’s thing and I need to work on that :)
Ev - that baby jacket? Frogged…
And about ignoring things you think you can’t do? The problem for me was that some part of me really did want to do them. I would tell myself I didn’t want to make socks and then find myself with double-points in hand trying to figure out how to “join”. And I told myself that beaded knitting was fussy, slow and unappealing…
I may have lied :)
Oh, and about the Universe being perverse? I found this Beading with Needle Tutorial this morning :)
No trackbacks yet.
The beads look lovely. Do you think I might be wasting my time then - I’ve threaded about a million beads onto some lace weight yarn and have been pottering along with that, using the slip stitch method. I think I’ll be disappointed if I’m doing something silly but would probably prefer not to waste a lot of time on it only to have it break.
Ah, yes. I found (with my size 14 hook and 10/0 seed beads - ACK!) that the method you described works best, drawing the bead down and over the stitch, rather than pulling through.
You have now been sucked into the vortex that is Lace Knitting With Beads! Muhahahahahah.
P.S. Sorry I missed Chatters on Saturday. :( No good reason, just missed it. However, for GOOD reasons, I shall also miss the next two (plans with friends on Sat 9/15, Wedding out of town in 9/22).
You do your beaded knitting exactly the way I do! I’m a right-handed knitter and a left-handed crocheter. It’s too cool to find another like-minded peer.
Kathleen - I really doubt I’m going to turn into a nothing-but-lace knitter - it’s just that lace is something I thought I’d never be able to manage. And yet, it’s beginning to work out - in my head and on my needles :)
The beads - well the combination of beads and lace is amazingly beautiful and definitely something I’m going to want to play with.
OMG! It just occurred to me what frogging knitted fabric with beads in it is going to be like should it ever be necessary!!!
Opal - Honest?!?!? Oh honey, come on in! Sit down - can I get you a cup of tea? A raspberry turnover? A partridge in a pear tree?
I can hardly believe it! Everyone I know of who does both things does both of them with one hand, you know, not splitting the difference!
Like-minded indeed! Whee!
Abi - I’m sorry to have caused you any consternation :) The right way to do things is always the way that makes you happiest and gives you the results you’re looking for.
If you’re concerned, before you go too much farther with your project, do a small swatch using the crochet hook to attach the beads. Compare it to your work-in-progress and see which you prefer.
And please, can I see the shawl when it’s done?
I’m working on a pair of Acorn wrist warmers right now that uses Rowan Kid Silk Haze and beads. The pattern calls for the slip stitch technique, but the beads were still getting lost. With the crochet hook technique, I’m finding it easier, and the beads stay put. And, yes, beaded lace is a lot of fun, isn’t it?
My baby sweater has the fronts done and I’ve got the yarn for the sleeves. Still have to decide what to do for the back.
And, honey, I’m like you with casting on for new projects. Finish one and I’ll cast on 3 more! I’ll never get anywhere that way!!
Ev - I’ve been thinking of wristers/mitts too, but that’s going to have to wait a while - something else has to come first :)
I’m closing in on the Kimono scarf - another couple of repeats should do it. Then a wash and a block and it’s done!
I still have not tried beaded knitting. I do have a new shawl charted and ready to try and um, it does have beads, so I will see how it goes!
Lisa - I really don’t think you’re going to have any problem - not with those clever hands of yours :)
I’m dying to see this masterpiece! I hope it’s fun for you to knit :)
Ha! After all that you did win the Lorna’s Laces. Send me email with a mailing address.
Wow! I never would have thought of it!! And yet now that you explain it, I say why didn’t I think of that before? instead of feeding a million beads onto my yarn first (especially with my high frograte). Thank you for the tip.
Omly - E-mail on the way :) Yikes! Lorna’s Laces! Be still my heart…
Ruth - This really isn’t a short-cut :) You have to interrupt the flow of your knitting every time a bead needs to be added. On the other hand, there is no lengthy set-up, nothing abrading on your yarn and, I feel, a more secure and attractive attachment to the fabric.
I hope it works well for you!
Frogging with Beads: When I frog slowly, I pick the beads off. However, the one time I ripped back 10 rows - I just let them pop off and fly around the work area!
Kathleen - Oh forgive me for laughing, but I can just imagine how frustrated you must have felt to have frogged in that fashion! But the image of beads rocketing around the room to a background of ardent cussing is just too funny :)
I hope you never feel like doing that again. I hope I never feel like that either. I’d never get the beads back from the cats!
