How to Make A Bead-Stringing Needle (& Why)

 Story of the Aquamarine Réclamé Lariat, blogged.

Some of the prettiest beads have tiny bead holes! What is a bead crocheter to do? A do-it-yourself beading needle worked the best when I wanted to use aquamarine beads for a Trailing Vine Lariat.

Gem chip beads usually have highly irregular bead holes in size and shape. I wanted to string them onto a strong size #20 crochet thread, and none of my needles were fine enough. My best chance was to make a bead-stringing needle out of the thinnest piece of wire I had on hand, which was 30 gauge. 

My DIY Needle Got These Strung

I wish I'd had even finer wire for this, such as 32ga or 34ga! (Notice that as wire gets finer in diameter, the gauge number gets larger.) This wire needle and my thread size were still a bit too thick for a few of my beads. If I tried to force them, they weakened the thread and needle. I decided it's not worth forcing them, and I learned to set aside those beads. 

A bead reamer might help make some of these beads more cooperative--if one exists for bead holes this small.

How to Save the Day in Two Seconds with a Bead-Stringing Needle 

From bottom to top: Step 1, Step 2, Step 3.

1. Cut a piece of the thinnest wire you can find. Cut it any length you like; approximately 3" (8 cm) long is a comfortable length for me. Sometimes I trim the beading end of it later if it gets bent or kinked.

2. Fold the piece in half; the fold becomes the eye of a beading needle. Leave the eye big if you like, as shown. It will collapse down to a tiny needle eye the first time you use it (as shown).

Pearls and abalone beads have tiny
irregular holes too. Satin Pillow Necklace

3. Insert the bead thread into the eye, then twist the two wire ends together as lightly as necessary to form a needle point. Add too many unnecessary twists will thicken the needle. That would defeat the purpose of making your own skinny needle! 

I have two other common sense suggestions that I learned the hard way LOL.

Label the Spool. Control the Spool.

Control how the wire unspools: I simply tie something through the spool center and around it. (Pictured at right is a "twisty-tie".) Then, when I cut off a piece of wire, I hook the new cut end around it. (You can kind of see this in the photo.) This tie controls the unspooling just enough for a manageable speed.

Be kind to yourself and label the spool with permanent ink, if it isn't already labeled! It's almost impossible to remember the gauge of a wire. A surprising number of spools are labeled only on discardable packaging, not the spool itself. 

Tips for Crocheting with Wire

Solstice Bangles how-to, Winter 2017

Even if you've been crocheting with wire for a long time, your stitches are likely to look loose and irregular. There’s also no way that your stitches can look neat, even, and flat while you’re gripping it to work the stitches. It doesn't matter! When you're done, you can "block" your stitches by poking and pulling individual strands into place with your hook. (It's one of five ways listed in this newer post for giving your crochet a nice finish.)

More Tips for Crocheting with Wire

1) If the wire feels too slippery, try looping it around an additional finger for more tension.

2) For tighter stitches, use a finer (thinner) gauge of wire if possible; if not, try to make small contained movements as you crochet.

3) 28 gauge ("28ga") wire is thinner and easier to crochet than 26ga. Crocheting wire uses new muscles that other kinds of crocheting don’t require. It’s more important than usual to avoid hunching your shoulders as you work. If you have trouble with the 28ga at first, start with the next finer size: 30ga. Any size you use will be beautiful.

4) If you find that you use one of your fingertips as a backing when trying to poke the hook through a stitch, wear a thimble or band-aid on that finger for cushioned support.

A bookmark in progress of pure silver wire,
crocheted for my grandfather 

5) Assume that you can’t rip out mistakes. Sometimes you can without breaking the wire, but you will still be weakening it. It’s best to leave tiny kinks in the wire; trying to remove them stresses the wire even more. 

Wire is weird because it’s so strong that you have to manhandle it, but it can snap, so you have to baby it at the same time. 

If the wire does break, don’t worry. Twist together the broken ends and keep going. With some wire projects you don’t really need to weave in a tail, just try to keep ends from popping up and feeling prickly or snagging things (this is especially important with jewelry items).

If you love adding little seed beads to stitches, here's your chance. There's nothing easier than stringing them onto wire and crocheting them into stitches as you go!