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Does anyone here do bead crochet? Could you recommend me supplies to get started?
I really want to try out bead crochet, I found a decent yt tutorial for starting and this pintrest board has enough patterns to last a lifetime, but i have absolutely no idea where to start in terms of buying supplies.
Does anyone here do bead crochet? could you point me in the right direction for the correct floss & beads to use? (and also the needed findings, I think each one needs 2 caps and a tube to stabilize it; I have plenty of jump rings and lobster clasps already cos I do chainmaille so that's not an issue) or any other tips would be appreciated too!!
Regardless of whether you want to do kumihimo or not, if you're going to be threading a lot of beads, you may want to look at a bead spinner.
I don't have any experience with bead crochet, but the end result is pretty similar to beaded kumihimo. We got into it for a while when my daughter learned how to do it in art class one year.
Here is a pretty good tutorial with a basic braid using the beads. . The stuff that she lists out in the kit at the beginning of the kit is a pretty good starter set. I would source the items individually from a craft store or amazon.
You can make a disk by cutting slots in cardboard and use embroidery floss to try it out, but the foam discs give you more consistent tension and are not too expensive. Similarly, you can hack your own bobbins, weights, etc.
The way you finish them is to whip the cord tightly around each end to bind the threads and then glue the end into the barrel end. I have used magnetic barrel ends like those shown in the video or the barrel ends that have an eye for putting a ring into so you can attach a clasp. I found the gluing a little weird at first, but it seems to work well enough. The size barrel you need depends on the weight of the cord and the number of strands you are using, so if you're not in a hurry, I would spend time trying different patterns and wait to buy barrels until you have a finished product and can measure it. Or get a kit that has a variety of barrel sizes.
You can actually do quite a lot of patterning without beads. One of my favorite pattern tools is here. I also bought this book. After checking several out from the library, it was my favorite.
Since you are a programmer, I will warn you that figuring out the relationship between the strands on the disc and the final pattern is a hell of a drug. I quickly got to designing patterns with more groups and strands and was headed down the road of making my own pattern tool. Here is a tool, not mine, that lets you do some of the more complex patterns.. You can get 64 slot discs to hold the bigger patterns. The double thickness ones are nice.
Ooooh the bead spinner looks really cool!! sadly it would only be useful for bead crochet in some pretty specific situations cos normally you have to count very carefully and put like 3 pink then 3 yellow then 1 black then 1 blue then 2 pink then....etc, but if you were doing like a mostly solid color pattern with a couple flowers on it i could see using this for the long patches of solid color where the flowers are spaced out from each other. (would still need to count after spinning them on though or you might get an off-by-one error and the next flower wouldnt be aligned right) but if I start getting more into beads and need to do a lot of solid-color stringing I will most definitely get one of these and practice with it!
I'd never heard of kumihimo, but I watched that video and it looks pretty cool!! and definitely easier to get into than bead crochet, maybe I will try this first to get a bit more comfortable with working with beads. I really enjoy craft supplies and the bobbins, weight, and wheel look so much fun to use in a project
hearing that you glue the clasp definitely sounded weird to me also, im glad to hear it's not weird lol. but magnetic clasps (especially on a bracelet) make me nervous that i will wipe data so I would probably not use those clasps and go with the bead covers I've seen in bead crochet which I think are the same as the barrels you're mentioning.
haha I bet!! this seems to be the tool for bead crochet though as of yet I haven't found an online repository of patterns other than people posting screenshots of their patterns made using this on pinterest
I don't do bead crocheting....yet.
https://artbeads.com/design-studio/how-to-crochet-bead-tube-jewelry/
It sounds like a very different thing from kumihimo-ing the beads together. A kumihimo is spun around a circular or square disc and it's like a fancy friendship bracelet, and sliding beads onto the threads, using 8 or 16 or 24 strands of floss and weaving them together. All beads are strung on at the beginning then it's a meditative weave to execute.
This one sounds more like making a very small crochet magic circle and then crocheting up every stitch of the way to make a tall cylinder. Floss, hook, beads, end caps. One strand all the way through. With this method it sounds like you can do a lot more fancy patterning and colour changes because beads are chosen and added one at a time: If you want to change patterns and colours comeptely half way there's nothing stopping you.
Do you already crochet?
As I indicated in my other comment, I also don't do bead crochet, but from the video I watched, I am pretty sure you have to string all the beads ahead of time.
On the link you posted, step 1 says
I think this might be harder than kumihimo, because usually each strand gets one kind of bead. In that video, she has to string them in pattern order.
Yikes. Yeah I don't have that kind of concentration ability to count precisely, repeat for 100x. Stupid ADHD. I will definitely mess up a lot and the final pattern all wonky.
kind of but also people on the internet have already done this for you, so mostly you just follow a pattern and then it magically works, which is pretty appealing to me, I'm able to do a lot of counting without losing attention to my audiobook already so I think I will be fine on that front. I'm not sure if doing necklaces that are 12-16 beads thick with 11/0 beads will be within my patience level but I want to at least try bracelets that are 6 beads thick with 8/0 beads haha
I can do double crochet stitches (took me about 10 minutes to learn the mechanics and then I've practiced for a few hours) but my tension is awful. I also haven't loved working with yarn so far because it splits too easily, although I am thinking this might be because I bought the cheapest yarn available to practice with. I haven't done a full project yet but I've made several small rectangles! I'm thinking the crochet here will be easier because (1) the thread won't split with my hook and (2) the thread shouldnt be as stretchy as yarn so tension shouldn't matter as much
Cheap yarn is always difficult to work with, but tension can be off no matter what kind of yarn you use. I have worked with yarn that had no give and I could still have wonky tension - it's based on how tight or loose you hold your yarn in the non-hook hand. Keep practicing your tension - it will help with any type of crochet that you do. I tend to thread the yarn between the fingers on my non-hook holding hand like this crochet tension.
I will second that cheap yarn make everything terrible. There's a milky smooth kind that's so kind on your hands, doesn't fray doesn't split, and your final product also looks more beautiful instead of fuzzy/pilly. I understand not wanting to splurge on a new hobby...but in the end I still have a whole bunch of cheap yarn from the first purchase that I should just throw away. Ended up being more wasted money :(
Tension is generally difficult to be learn for crochet as a beginner. Buying a simple tension ring helps a lot in my experience.
ohh very cool!! I hadn't heard of this before, but it looks relatively similar to the "jump ring tool" that I use for maille, I'll pick one up! thanks!
You can also crochet yourself one, but it requires good tension to do so so getting the rings is still useful. The rings are easy to get super cheap, I got a bunch on amazon for a pittance.
sadly I gotta get one that's nickel free so it's slightly more expensive, but still not that much compared to the amount I spend on jump rings. Just placed an order!
Hope it works out for you! I've never done bead crochet so that might need its own stuff, but for normal crochet they've really helped me.