Those of you who have worked with one of my bead crochet patterns for a beaded rope choker necklace probably noticed a single bead of some distinctive color, usually bright red, that is the first one in the report on the list of beads.
If you are not sure what that bead is for and what to do with it, here is the explanation.
We can think of it as a helper bead.
Beading pattern usually repeats itself, especially when you work on a longer piece, such as necklace. You can find total number of beads per repeat in the report.
In this sample, the pattern segment of three rows is repeated 10 times.
As you know, tubular crochet with beads requires us to string all needed beads before we start crocheting the spiral, and the list of beads tells us in which order to string the beads.
Pattern without the helper bead
When we open the pattern for a necklace that consists of several repeated pattern segments (we use jBead software to open .jbb files), if the pattern does not have the helper bead, the report will show us only the list of beads per repeat, as shown in the photo above.
In that case, the next thing we need to do is to calculate how many repeats we will need to complete the necklace of certain length, and that many times we string the pattern segment.
Pattern with the helper bead
If the pattern has a helper bead, then the report will show us the complete list of beads needed for the project.
In this case, when we print out the report, we keep stringing the beads till the end of report, without having to worry about the number of repeats. The whole project pattern will be treated as a single repeat. When stringing, the helper bead itself can be omitted, or replaced with the same bead as the adjacent bead.
This is helpful when working with longer pieces, and when it is likely that certain jewelry length will require non-round number of repeats. Let the program do the math! 😉
I use this helper bead in my patterns quite often, but if you prefer to print out and list only the beads in a repeating segment, use .jbb file to remove the helper bead and then print the pattern.
Happy beading!