Crochet + Beads = Pretty!

Recently, the Vogue Knitting special crochet edition inspired me to make some quick and cute crochet bracelets.  Now, this may sound goofy, but I had never considered crocheting with beads because I couldn't imagine working with a hook tiny enough to fit through the middle of a bead (I know, I know, a serious misunderstanding of the process!).  But once I saw the explanation of how this actually works, it was easy peasy!  You might even say lemon squeezy!

It turns out that you just have to string the beads onto the thread you are using before begining to crochet.  Here, I'm using 20lb hemp.  In retrospect, I should have purchased 10lb hemp- I had to strip off one of the strands to get it to fit throught the glass pearls.

The next step is simply to crochet as you normally would and just slide a bead down whenever necessary.  For the larger beads, I added a few extra chains between pearls just because it looked nicer to separate them a bit more.

Here are the finished products:



Each of these wraps around the wrist twice, and I just added a small ring clasp to the ends.  The nice thing about hemp is that although it is impossible to weave in the ends as in a normal project, that's ok, because it looks very natural and casual to leave a bit of knotted thread at the ends.

So, the verdict is: crochet + beads = pretty!  I'll have to try this on many more complex projects- I feel a "phase" coming on!