The wrap designing has been going well. I have a bunch of green and blue Czech glass beads left over from an earlier project. I’m combining the more bluish ones with the yarn, and I think they’re going to look good. By the way, these photos are much more true-to-color than the last image of the yarn I posted. Now it really does look Jade.
I’m using the beading-as-you-go technique, which requires a crochet hook to place a bead on stitches as you knit. For reference, the yarn here is fingering weight, the crochet hook is a #10 steel hook and the beads are Czech glass seed beads, 8/0 weight. I should probably have included a penny for scale!
To do this kind of beading, just knit to the stitch you want to put the bead on. Then place the bead on the crochet hook (like above, only just one if you only want to place one bead). Then use the crochet hook to slip the stitch you’d like to bead (this can be before or after you work the stitch) off the needle, holding it on to the crochet hook. Then, just slip the bead off the crochet hook and onto the stitch. You end up with a bead that is placed horizontally, relative to the direction of your stitches. For vertically-oriented beads, you would need to pre-string the beads onto your yarn. This means a lot of shoving beads around as you knit, and can add wear to the yarn as the many beads slide around as you work.
Right now, I’m knitting leaves. I currently have nine, and I’m aiming for about 12, for a wrap that will be about 28″ high.
I’m placing the beads on the tips of the leaves. The leaves themselves are the Scalloped Leaves from Nicky Epstein’s Knitting on the Edge, but expanded by four rows to make them longer and larger. The scalloped leaves motif has quite a few errors in the original pattern writeup– I checked my corrections against the corrections described in this post by the sympathetic vibration blog. I also generated a chart, which I find much easier to read. If you would like to download the chart, click here. I’m not sure precisely what the legal ramifications are of posting a chart version of the corrected written instructions for an error-ridden motif in a knitting pattern book. I am irritated by the fact that Epstein’s website doesn’t appear to have errata for her books, nor was I able to find official Knitting on the Edge errata elsewhere.
Here’s a closeup of an unblocked scalloped leaf, where you can see the bead on the tip.
Onward!
This is great. You are clear as a bell in your explanations as always.
I appreciate all the good information and instruction on your blog. It is one of my favorites. I especially liked the way you did your steeks. What a good idea to knit first.
Thanks for sharing!
It can be hard to find the errata….I have an idea you might find them at the publisher’s site, rather than the designer’s site, though why on earth they wouldn’t be on both is hard to understand.