Awesome Way to Add Beads to Knitting

As I knit more and more, I really enjoy lace projects – especially ones with beads. But I’ve found that adding the beads can be a bit tedious. The first project I did, I tried to use a needle threader to add beads – disaster! They kept breaking. Then, I got a small steel crochet hook that would hold about 3-5 beads and that was my defacto menthod. But now, thanks to the mention of a great tool in a pattern I recently purchased, I know that the very best way to add beads to my knitting is to use a Fleegle Beader. I’m not affiliated with the tool in any way, but I absolutely love it.

What’s so awesome about the Fleegle Beader?

1. You can use smaller-sized beads that size 6/0.  With the medium-sized beader, you can use size 8/0 beads – which often come in a great variety.
2. You can load a TON more beads up at a time that you could ever do with a crochet hook.
3. It’s a really well-made product that doesn’t seem to bend out of shape. And its easy to use!
4. Depending on your project, it makes it easy to take enough beads with you to do quite a bit of knitting, without worrying about them going everywhere.
5. It comes with a handle little plastic tube that you can put it in when loaded and that fits nicely in your knitting bag.
6. Best of all – you can use it with a Bead Spinner!! That’s an item that lets you load beads onto your Fleegle Beader in record time.

Watch this video to see how to use the device. Its slow as molasses, but worth the watch anyway. Fast forward to 2:15 if you want to watch it in action with the Bead Spinner.

The Fleegle Beader can be purchased here: The Gossamer Web on Etsy. It comes in 3 sizes: 0.8 mm, 1.0 mm or 1.3 mm. Note: The 1.3 mm is supposed to work with size 6/0 beads and up to Fingering Weight yarn, but I had difficulty with it – many of the beads wouldn’t go over the curve and I couldn’t put the beads on even lace weight yarn. 

 

My Visit to An Awesome Yarn Store

Borrowed from http://www.personalthreads.com.

I just visited the most amazing yarn store. Its called Personal Threads and it was like a religious experience to visit there. They had the most beautiful yarns. I wanted to buy them all. Well… at least half of them. It was completely overwhelming. It took me 2 hours to pick out 2 yarns! I think my favorites were the silk yarns, but I also loved all the yarn with “bling” in it – sequins, beads, metallic threads, etc. Of course the mohair yarns were also great. And the ones that combines more than one of those things were just irresistible. I spent way too much money and got yarn for 2 more projects (taking me up to 7 projects pending – yikes!).

Not only was the yarn great, but they had the store arranged in a way that really made it easy to see everything there was to offer. Basically they had one sample of everything out on the floor with more “in the back”. And the samples were on neat little shelves so it was easy to see all the choices. In addition, they had patterns I haven’t seen anywhere else. Some were in the form of books but they also had a large bookshelf of binders filled with both free and for-fee patterns. And they had some great samples of work done with their yarns around the store – things you just have to touch and ooh and ah over. All the natural light really helped see the best each yarn had to offer.

Add to that the super friendly and helpful staff. They were very understanding of how hard it was to pick just a few yarns to take home. They were great help in find a pattern, too. And they were nice enough to check back with me frequently to see if I had any questions and always willing to answer any question I had.

I ended up with a lace weight yarn to make a knitted wrap (a pretty ambitious project, actually) and a silk yarn with beads for a small scarf (probably). I’m really looking forward to working with these yarns. You’ll be seeing more about it soon.