So I dyed this yarn the other night, and it immediately made me think of the beach, which of course made me think of Mum. I have never ever used beads before in any knitting or crochet, but I KNEW that I had to use this yarn to make her a big cowl with bluegreen beads in it to represent the beach and the seashore, which she loves.

Luckily, I had the PERFECT beads already in my craft cupboard, but since the yarn is sport/DK-weight and the beads have very small holes, I couldn’t put them on with a crochet hook as the pattern suggested. After a spot of research, I found out that another way to do it is to string all the beads on the yarn beforehand, BUT I didn’t have a needle that was simultaneously big enough to thread the yarn through, yet small enough to fit through the beads.

All this took about 2 hours, and by then I had fallen too much in love with the idea of this cowl to give up. So in the end I pulled the wire part out of a twist-tie, and made myself a super-thin beading-needle. Luckily for me, the beads JUST fit on the yarn, which makes this cowl possible but also highly annoying since I have to force the yarn through them to be able to knit with it. BUT, it is WORTH IT because it is GORGEOUS.

I am basically just using the pattern as a guide…I messed up the first row of beads a tiny bit before I realised that you have to place them in EXACTLY the same spot every time. Also I modified the lace section a bit to make the beads show up a bit better and not get lost in the fabric.

Modifications

Beading row: Knit the YO, pull bead up behind stitch, bring yarn forward and purl next st

YO row: YO, K2TBL

07 May - The knitting part is done! The cafe was quiet today, so I spent the whole morning stringing the next (and thankfully last!) set of beads, so I can do a crochet edging on one side to represent the ocean. I am not sure what I am going to do for the edging yet but I am just going to play with it and the beads and see what I can come up with.

The fact that this project is so conceptual is really helping me knit fast, because I honestly can’t wait to see it when it is done. So far it is aligning perfectly with my vision of it, and I love it and I hope Mum loves it too :D

Later that night…

Squeeeeee! I just blocked it and it is hanging in the bathroom drying out. In the end I went with a knitted edging because all the crochet ones I tried looked weird and didn’t go with the rest of it. I used a feather-and-fan stitch and added beads in the YOs to represent the waves crashing on the shore of the beach. It came out great, and I love, love, LOVE it. This is the most excited I have been about a project in a loooong time :D <3