Almost Done - For Me!

In between other projects, I've been working on this rope for myself. I have a set of white and black ropes that are my personal dress up and travel necklaces. However, truth be told, my wardrobe leans more to sage, dusty pinks, lime and hot pinks. So I need another set of grab ' go ropes for myself. I think this one will do nicely, especially paired with one that is predominately the pink you see above. Now I need to finish the last inch and join the ends. I'd better hurry as I will need them later this week.

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Understanding Bead Crochet:

I have the facility of being able to see a design from the flat graph paper. However lately I've been trying to explain the mechanics of it to my programmer/friend as we explore the next possibilities in bead crochet software. Thus, I went to bed with a headache last night. It would be much, much easier if he would learn to bead crochet!

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You read a graph from the bottom up, left to right. The worst of it is that you string up the graph and crochet down the graph. Remember: "the last bead strung is the first bead crocheted". This is especially important when you want to add on to your rope and match a design. You need to think backwards, and string your beads that way.

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I never thought I'd revert back to crocheting white beads and marking them with a Sharpie. It was the only way I could think of to show just where each bead from the graph was on a rope. And I learned something ..... it doesn't make a lick of difference if you start stringing with bead 1 or bead 36, the pattern comes out the same. Duh, I should have known that as I did know that you needed a reverse stringing table to be able to add onto a rope and match up a pattern! Try teaching something to someone else and see what you manage to learn yourself.

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I did get a chuckle explaining that you can add on to only one end of a rope. Because of the way the loops are formed, the other end is sort of sealed. Light went on and I brought up a dog food bag, or birdseed bag.... pull the string loops one way and the thread just zips off; pull the other end of the string and you have the tightest, non-moving, knotted piece of string.

All of this mental exercise is because we want to be able to have a software package that can go get design elements and put them together to make larger pattern pieces. To do that, you have to really understand the mechanics of the craft at a deeper level. Almost more than I ever wanted to know!