Audio Transcript
Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi this is Megan with Beadaholique.com and today I'm going to show you how to do circular beaded crochet for left-handed crocheters so what you're getting need is to have your string and you're gonna have your beads what I'm using here is just Super-Lon nylon string and I have size 6 seed beads on here the circular crochet with beads kinda looks like a beaded Kumihimo. It's just solid beads so your cord will only show a little tiny bit through and it'll be mostly beads I am using four colors of beads and it's going to really help you if you can use four colors when you're learning how to do this to keep your place basically so that you know the next place need to go in is the next color for this size bead and string. I have a size 6 crochet hook so first you need to string your beads and string them in order. Mine I have strung red, dark blue, yellow, turquoise, red, dark blue, yellow, turquoise. If you happen to have those colors of beads will be even easier to follow me, if you don't then just substitute out the colors that you have and keep those in mind when you watch how I did this. So just for the purposes of showing you I just strung that many. It's really going to depend on how long your piece is going to be. How many beads you'll need, you might want to just do a little swatch and say like okay for an inch I need this many beads count them up to know exactly how many you'll need if you're not following pattern that gives you the number so you also need to know how to do chain stitch crochet and specifically beaded chain stitch we do have a video on how to do that for lefties also, so if you don't know how to do that go ahead and watch that first and practice on that. So once you have your string and you have your beads on the string ahead and make a slip knot I am making a loop and pulling on the end but don't pull all the way through and pull it tight and you want to leave yourself a nice tail of about six inches there. Go ahead and pull that tight this is just like chain stitch so far and the first thing we're gonna do is chain stitch so the first step to do we're doing a four bead circular crochet so you can do different ones, I'm doing one that has four around the first thing you gonna do is do four beaded chain stitches in a row. You're not gonna skip any between, you're just using for beads in a row, so go ahead grab a bead every time for the first four stitches okay so you have your first four chain stitches with a bead in each one like that and the next thing you're gonna do is take the tail and pull it up so that you want your chain stitches along the top and you're beads hanging along the bottom. Then you're going to take your hook and you're going to put it into the loop of the first bead. For me that's a turquoise bead and when you pull it through you want to take your turquoise bead your bead 1 and put it to the left, then you're gonna bring your string up between this last red bead before and the turquoise bead. So bring it over here on the left you're going to drop down the next turquoise bead, the next big one and its gonna sit right on top of the one before and bring your string across your hook and you're gonna do a slip stitch which means gonna pull that loop through both of the loops that are already on your hook then you're going to go to the next color. This why it's important to color code when you're learning and our next bead is yellow. So go to your bead 2 you wanna make sure that your bead is to the left of the hook and that your string is coming between that bead and the one before. You want to make sure that it's always coming up right between those two beads here and that this is over to that side drop the next bead and again you can see that you're working with one that's gonna sit right on top of the same color of the one below and bring your thread to the right across the hook and make another slip stitch, pull your hook through both of the loops on the hook. Do the dark blue bead this third bead next to the third color so through that loop move the bead to the left bring your string between that bead and the one previous. Drop down the next bead. It should be the same color as that next one on the hook and bring your thread around and make a slip stitch. Next is the red one that's the last one form our original four beads bring the bead to the left, bring the string up between that bead in the next. Drop down the next bead bring your string over the hook and pull it through so that's the first row. You're doing this in a spiral so you don't really have much of a chain between rows but those are the first four. So this the first row to continue just gonna keep going right around the next color in the pattern is turquoise, bring it your hook through that loop, bring the bead to the left drop the bead down make a slip stitch and just keep going to the yellow hook through, bead to the left string between, drop your bead down make a slip stitch and thats all that there is to this it is kind of tricky to figure out the first time. I've crocheted for years and years and years and this was tricky for me to get the hang of but its kind of one of those things that has an aha moment. it will be really hard to understand until all of a sudden it makes sense and then it will be very simple so you can then move onto projects that don't use four colors. You can use one color, you can use two colors. When you work in this way it gives you a really pretty spiral pattern so you can decide how you want to arrange your beads best for the pattern so there's a little bit more of it. What you mostly see is the beads and depending on what size hook you use, what size string you use what size beads you use. You'll either see more of the string or only beads. So you can kind of play with that a little bit and as I said you can see a spiral forming as the beads go around and that is how you do circular beaded crochet, the left-handed version finishing this there's a few different ways to finish it we'll actually do a separate video on how to finish this, so check for that video on how to finish circular bead crochet. Go to www.beadaholique.com to purchase beading supplies and to get design ideas!
