Beaded Bracelet

Today I finished a project that I started a few weeks ago. I decided randomly one day that I really should use some of my stock of seed beads. I bought my beads when I was at college and starting to learn to knit. I only needed to buy one pot of beads for the course, but I sort of went a bit mad in the shop and bought a few more than I needed. Since I left college I've not used many of these beads at all. So I decided to use some of these beads for a knitting project. The only problem with this bright idea was I had forgotten how to knit with beads. I had a complete brain freeze and I couldn't find my college notes. At this point I probably should have given up, except I had spent around 10 hours stringing beads onto some crochet thread. I couldn't give up after spending all those hours threading, now could I?

So I hunted round the net and found a video on YouTube (the source of so much knitterly goodness).

This video was short and sweet, with no narration but I think it was one of the clearest instructions I could find.

Using this video I cast on and knit stocking stitch while adding beads for some time and came up with this:

I decided that this silk I got at a show a while ago would work well with my little band of beads and I managed to track down some ribbon that matched it really well.

I took the silk and ironed on some interfacing before cutting out two pieces to be sewn together and then turned the band right side out. I then stitched on the knitted band and got this:

I sealed the cut ends of the ribbon by holding a lit match close to the edge until they melted slightly.

I tied the ribbon into a double bow so that it would stay fastened. I decided that slipping the band over the hand would be easier than trying to tie a pretty bow one handed.

If anyone is interested I may write this little project up as a tutorial and include the sewing pattern piece as it is knocking around at the moment. If no one shows any interest, I'll probably consign it to the depths of the rubbish bin and forget about doing this again. For the moment it has served as an excellent little exercise in knitting with beads.