Adding Beads to my Knitting

It's Sunday, so it's my day off from quilting.  It's a cold day here, perfect for knitting!  I was working away on my shawl in the "Aloft" yarn, when I got an idea!

I really wanted to jazz up a shawl with beads.  The easiest way to do that is to buy yarn that is already beaded from "Artyarns" or "Tilli Thomas" but the downsides are that you can't alter the position of the beads in your knitting, and they are REALLY expensive.

So I decided to look into adding my own beads.  After researching this, I found there are basically three ways: Sew the beads on after you finish knitting; String beads onto your yarn before beginning to knit and slide them into position as you want them;  or place them individually with a crochet hook as you go.

For a lot of reasons, the best option for me seemed to be the third one...place the beads as I go.  So I decided to give it a try.  I modified a simple Feather and Fan pattern to include planned bead placement. Then I gathered the needed supplies.

In this shawl, I am using Knit Picks "Shadow" lace yarn and size 7-24 inch circular needles.

Then I needed a tiny crochet hook to place my beads...this is a # 14 Clover steel hook...it has to be small enough to go through the bead holes



Next are my beads...size 6 seed beads...a nice variety of reds to go with my tone on tone yarn



So I started, it felt a little awkward for the first row, but after that it became easy, and it really doesn't slow my progress down much at all.



And I like the options of placing the beads where I want them



I'm really liking this!