How to Bead Crochet or Knit Fabric

How to Bead Crochet or Knit Fabric: The main way to create beaded fabric in crochet or knitting is to string beads onto thread or yarn. The other way is to stitch the beads onto the finished knitted or crocheted piece.

How to String Beads is primarily for those who want to incorporate a large number of gems into their knit or crocheted fabric. First, there are many ways to string beads; today, you can even buy beads that are already strung.

Some time ago, I had the pleasure of working with a Jewelry Designer and owner of VanBeads, I was teaching a class on how to be successful online. I told the class I wanted to create a fully beaded doll dress, and Jennifer suggested I buy a tool to help me string seed beads faster. That was back in 2005 or ’06, and I have to admit that today I don’t remember where she told me to buy the bead spinner. For the purpose of this article, I did look online and found several sources for similar tools, but not like mine, the image that heads this post.

But they all have one thing in common: the beading needle and how they work, which, by the way, I love, and this little contraption made my job a lot easier. But even with the tool hand beading is still an arduous task.

Is it Completed?

Yes, I completed my doll dresses yet? No. Does the tool work? Yes, and here are a couple of examples of beads that I’ve strung.

So if the tool works, why haven’t I completed the beaded doll dresses? Let’s just say that my goal was much larger than my patience; the challenge is getting enough thread beaded to complete an entire dress. Now I have used the tool to trim doll dresses, but I have yet to completely bead a dress. But is it possible to do? Yes.

In one of the videos I’m sharing today, someone asked: Can I use the tool for larger beads? The answer is yes.

Before I go on, I want to say I haven’t tried these brands, and I am not endorsing these beading tools — I am using them in this article because they are similar to the ones I have and work the same way.

How to Use the Beadsmith Spin and String

How to Use the Speedy Stringer

Learn How to Use the Bead Spinner

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hJ7Y6WUnu_4

Whichever brand you choose, the concept is to string as many beads as possible to knit or crochet them into your fabric.

How to Surface Bead (Bead Embroidery)

The primary technique used is simple back-stitching and couching, and it is easy to do for all sorts of free-form designs.

The next technique for surface beading is to use a deft, another way to do bead crochet on fabric with a very fine crochet hook. The working thread is below the fabric.  Watch this video by Juliana Correa.

Here are two really good PDFs with diagrams and instructions. The first is from Needlework by Sine Gunnarsdottir; here is the link to the PDF.

http://timeless-creations.ca/Historical-Beadwork-Part-2.pdf

The other is from sewing.com: http://www.sewing.org/files/guidelines/11_381_Beading_part2.pdf

For surface beading, Instructables really has a good post titled: How to Bead Fabric