Adding in Thread: bead crochet ropes

This lariat is 70" long. That's almost 6' of finished rope. It took about 70 yards of thread to crochet it or about 10 yards of strung beads. That's a very long string of beads to manage as you crochet. For me, it's just too long to handle at one time. Besides, counting out a pattern while stringing that many beads is sure to lead to one or more errors in the stringing. My mind just can't handle all of that as I much prefer crocheting to stringing. I only string about a yard of beads at any one time, crochet it and then string another yard of beads . . . it's all about being able to add in new threads of strung beads.

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I keep hearing people complain about stringing errors in their bead crochet and having to undo and re-string the whole thing to correct a sequence. One or two extra beads are easy to just break out to correct an error. A whole missing sequence or major stringing screw up is a whole different animal - and ever so frustrating.

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Just keep in mind:

The last bead strung is the first bead crocheted.

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For those of you who don't know how to add in new thread, I've put up a PDF tutorial on my website that walks you through how I do it.

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You can reach it through the "links/tutorials" link on my web page. (scroll down under "new work" block)

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Or you can directly download the PDF file here.

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Please remember that, "the last bead strung is the first bead crocheted". This is important as when you string a section of rope to add in to your already crocheted rope, you need to reverse the pattern in the newly strung section to get everything to line up properly.

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I sometimes cheat and design in 2 rows of plain background colored beads on both the old and new sections so I don't have to worry about joining a pattern exactly.

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If you've missed a row of beads, determine where they should go, cut your thread, string the missing beads on the thread, add the thread back into your work and keep crocheting. A minute or two compared to hours of re-stringing beads.

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Now, doesn't that make things so much easier??