I have just strung a gazillion beads onto a ball of yarn, started knitting and after just a few rounds discovered a knot in my yarn. I have had to cut the yarn and restring the beads. I am very unimpressed indeed. :mad:

Thought you'd sold all your yarn............
Bet the air was a deep shade of blue :hihi:

You didn't really restring them did you?

(Thinks of much easier way of dealing with it but keeps mouth shut in case of severe beating)

I had to. I tried every single way of joining the yarn I knew, but cause the beads were quite tight, every time I pushed them over the join it broke again. I struggled for ages trying to avoid having to restring. :(

Poor you.
Feeling apprehensive about my beads soon to be threaded onto my yarn for project.
I was told knitting with beads was easy. Pah!

The knitting with beads is easy. But you cannot overcome a bad knot. It is very irritating to find a knot.

It's the stringing bit that puts me off. Feels like a waste of good knitting time.

I was about to start some beaded work but I'm slightly apprehensive now. There is a method using a crochet hook in this article that looks easy and less time consuming than stringing a million beads on your yarn.

http://knitty.com/ISSUEspring06/FEATseducedbybeads.html

This probably doesn't help you now though...

In my experience the crochet hook method is ok if you don't live with pets or children and can remember that you have an open packet of beads on your lap BEFORE you stand up. If you string them on the yarn you only need to watch what you are doing the one time, once they are on the yarn they are secure. With the hook method you always have the chance to dump the beads on the floor. If you plan on taking your knitting out and about then stringing them is the way to go in my opinion.

My opinion is of course influenced by me currently using a hook with a barb scarcely big enough to see and having recently had what my son is calling in hushed tones "the bead incident". I dropped a full packet of beads (1100) all over the floor. We can laugh about it now....

Is it the weather or something that's making us have a bead phase?

It looked much easier than stringing a million beads and then working out exactly how they should be positioned. However, I hadn't factored in the cats and my clumsiness. There must be an easy way surely.

In my experience the crochet hook method is ok if you don't live with pets or children and can remember that you have an open packet of beads on your lap BEFORE you stand up. If you string them on the yarn you only need to watch what you are doing the one time, once they are on the yarn they are secure. With the hook method you always have the chance to dump the beads on the floor. If you plan on taking your knitting out and about then stringing them is the way to go in my opinion.

My opinion is of course influenced by me currently using a hook with a barb scarcely big enough to see and having recently had what my son is calling in hushed tones "the bead incident". I dropped a full packet of beads (1100) all over the floor. We can laugh about it now....

Is it the weather or something that's making us have a bead phase?

It must be W4B, as even I have weakened and am attempting the beaded knitting - possibly foolishly.

You didn't really restring them did you?

(Thinks of much easier way of dealing with it but keeps mouth shut in case of severe beating)

So how would you have done it for future reference should I need to do something similar - whisper it to avoid beatings :D

Swear. Get sewing thread and sewing needle, whip thread to end of yarn (not a knot, a few stitches on top of each other will hold it without adding any bulk), slide beads onto sewing thread, sew thread to other piece of yarn, slide beads from thread to yarn. Knit

Using sewing thread keeps the bulk down at the join and the beads should slip easily from one tut t'other. It is probably the way you got the beads onto the yarn in the first place anyway. Trying to join the two pieces of yarn directly together is probably a non-starter because even if you splice it there's still going to be that bit of roughness there that might catch on a bead.

And as an extra tip - when you've cast off and still have a few (hundred) beads left because you estimated rather than counted them, slip them onto sewing thread and knot the ends and then it gives you a head start the next time you use them. I could also say that it's worth checking the rest of the ball, quite often if you hit a knot it has a friend a few yards further in.

Well, that's me off the knitting with beads for a while! I hadn't actually planned anything specific but what with how contagious new projects are I had started dreaming of thinking of perhaps starting one!!:suspect:

However, I seem to be finding knots in everything right now but don't think the hook method at all possible, either, due to a naughty cat, naughty dog and a toddler!:P

(The toddler's actually the least naughty but at the end of the day a toddler's a toddler)!:D

Shame as that reduces my list of projects to from 1million to 1million-1 now!:hihi: