Before we start crocheting a beaded rope, we need to string all the beads following a certain pattern.
In order to get a finished jewelry piece with bead colors in desired places we need to read beading pattern correctly.
The following picture shows an example of a crochet rope beading pattern. It emphasizes the details that we need to pay our attention to.
1 – Circumference
‘Circumference’ shows us the number of beads per row. In the case of this example pattern, that is 18 beads per row.
This means that we will start our crochet tube by doing a magic circle with 18 single crochet stitches, and after that, as soon as we start adding beads, there will be one bead per single crochet stitch.
2 – Rows per repeat
When we look at the above example pattern, we see that it consists of 40 rows in total.
However, the segment of first, in this case, ten rows is the segment (marked as ‘2a’ in the photo) that repeats itself four times. We call this segment a repeat.
Different rope patterns will, of course, have different repeats, and the label ‘Rows per repeat’ shows us the number of rows in a single repeat.
Knowing where the repeating starts is important because it helps us plan the length of our entire project. Based on the number of rows per repeat, we will be able to calculate how many repeats we need to complete the project.
Going back to our example pattern, we know that it has 40 rows in total, but if we want to create a necklace, we will need a longer piece than that. That’s why we need to focus on the number of rows per single repeat, which is 10 in the given example.
If we plan on using Toho seed beads size 11 (with these seed beads, ~6 crochet rows will give us rope of 1 cm length), for the necklace length of about 40 cm, we will need to crochet 230 rows, and that means that we need to repeat our example pattern (the repeating segment of 10 rows) 23 times.
3 – Total number of beads
‘Total number of beads’ in the given example refers to the total number of beads per whole piece (40 rows and 18 beads per row: 40 x 18 = 720 beads), not the repeat.
The color legend just bellow the total number of beads shows us how many beads of each color are included in that total number.
However, when you purchase a pattern, you will usually get only the repeating segment, so the total number of beads will refer to the total number of beads per repeat.
In that case, to calculate the total number of beads you will need for the whole necklace, simply multiply the total number of beads per repeat by the number of needed repeats calculated in the previous step (we calculated 23 repeats for a 40-centimeter necklace).
Stringing and crocheting
Now that we have all necessary details, we can start stringing beads.
Bead stringing order is shown right bellow the information about the total number of beads (see the above picture, section marked as 2b).
We will start stringing colors starting from the top left corner of the beading report, going down to the end of the column, and then we will move to the next column, again from top to bottom.
This stringing report shows in which order we need to string the beads for a single repeat, therefore, for our assumed necklace with 23 repeats, we will need to string all the beads from this report 23 times.
When this is done, we are ready to proceed to the next step – crocheting. That’s it, let the magic of beaded spiral crochet begin.