Knitting with Beads

I admire delicate lace shawls with beads knitted into them. I would love to make the gorgeous Aeolian Shawl by Elizabeth Freeman someday. Hopefully, this pandemic won't last much longer and I can stock up on beautiful lace yarn soon to attempt it. However; for now, I am stuck to knitting with yarn from my stash.

Since my daughter had a few clear beads at home, I decided to try incorporating beads into my latest stash-buster project. The beads were not as small as I would have liked them to be but ended up being prefect for a simple coin purse knitted in stockinette stitch with the beads spaced sparsely apart. I knitted the purse in a rounded shape with Jamieson's 2 Ply Shetland Spindrift yarn in Maroon on 2.5mm needles.

I wanted the beads to show only on the outside surface of the purse and not to push through to the reverse of the work, so after some trial and error, I decided on the simplest method to place them. I strung the beads onto the yarn prior to casting on and then knitted them tightly into the project on slipped stitches as I went along. I am pleased with the end result.