I was inspired by Nancy Ricci’s Facebook post of a beautiful beaded necklace that she had crocheted. She made it with C-lon thread, a size 1.75 mm crochet hook, and lots of beads. I had to give it a try.
You begin by pre-stringing all your beads on to the thread. The last bead you thread will be the first that gets crocheted in. I found that a dental floss threader was a big help for stringing beads, but it’s hard to get the relatively thick thread through some of those tiny bead holes, and using the threader means that it’s a double thickness going through.
Nancy crocheted one stitch between each beaded stitch. I decided I liked the look of two chain stitches between each bead.
You can see my progress from threaded beads to crocheted beads here.
I originally thought I was going to make three graduated strands, but I didn’t like the way they looked as singles. They kind of curl back on themselves, and I wanted stick-straight strands. I decided to make them all the same length, and braid them slightly to give them some heft. As I was finishing the last 4 inches of beads, my strands got straighter, so there may have been some operator error involved.
I finished the ends of each strand with knot covers (there may be another name for these clamshells that cover your knots) and connected them to a jump ring, which I then connected to a toggle set. (Like the gecko?) The knot covers aren’t quite the same color as the toggle set, but they’re close enough. They look like beads.
When I was done, I wasn’t sure I liked the necklace, because it wasn’t what I had envisioned. But I’ve been wearing it today to see how it hangs, and I like it more and more.
(Ah, yes, the bathroom mirror picture.) Too bad it’s not for me! If I were to do it again, I think I’d see about bigger beads (to give it more visual weight and maybe hang straighter? and then I could have my three graduated strands) or thinner C-lon (it comes in weights, but there was only one weight at the bead store) for these smaller beads. I wanted to put some freshwater pearls in, but the thread was too thick for the holes in the pearls. More fun things to play with!
PDXKnitterati 