The last year, the vintage fashion has held the world of fashion in a tight grip. And knitting gets affected, since it’s gotten a high position among the fashion categories, especially the clothes knitted from bead knitting patterns. Knit a well-fitted pink polo shirt from the sixties and you can be sure your in fashion! Other things that are popular when it comes to knitting and bead knitting patterns is oversize collars and even oversize whole sweaters, socks that reaches your knees and leg warmers from the eighties. The leg warmers should be knitted in bright neon colors and knitted in a light yarn not to get too warm. There are lots of bead knitting patterns for leg warmers to make them more decorative. Modern knit patterns also includes big scarves that can have almost any form; from rectangular to oval or triangular. Sew a lace at the edges of your scarf to get the right romantic feeling or use a bead knitting pattern. Another thing you just have to try among the modern knit patterns is the small roses and other flowers which you can wear as a brooch on sweaters, jackets, bags or even in your hair. These are very beautiful and since they usually doesn’t reach more than a few inches across, they’re pretty fast to knit and you can use a bead knitting pattern. And perfect gifts to your fashion conscious friends!

At autumn when the temperature drops and the weather gets colder, you see many women with basqes they’ve knitted in warm tones themselves. This time a year, popular knitted items are also cardigans and the smaller variant called boleros and capes. From the fifties we also get the double set composed by a top and a cardigan knitted in the same yarn. This has become increasingly popular among knitters and that’s not strange since the double set is both very nice and harmonious in its pastel colors and you’ve got the possibility to adjust the temperature by taking off the cardigan. Luxury yarn like mohair is used a lot when using bead knitting patterns. Maybe you didn’t know that you can actually knit jewelry! Bracelets decorated with beads are the most modern jewelry you can wear! And since it’s not made of metal, you have to worry less about jewelry cleaning at home.

A good tip is to choose a smaller item as your first project with bead knitting patterns. Maybe you’re not a novice in the wide field of ordinary knitting, and then you probably have some or many already finished items. If you’ve kept the patterns for these items, you can use these again and knit the same thing all over but this second time, add some beads to the yarn. For this you don’t need a real bead knitting pattern. Doing this is very simple, for further, more thorough instructions and explanations, read the other articles on this site; for example Bead knitting and Beaded knitting.

To some people, bead or beaded knitting and knitting in general, sounds very old fashioned. They immediately think of an old lady sitting in her comfortable armchair or rocking wheel with her glasses on the tip of her nose and her lap full of knitting needles and knitting yarn. This picture couldn’t be more wrong today. Of course, knitting is a popular activity among elder women, but as you can read in Bead knitting history, the people who are bead knitting today, are actually mostly young! And when a specific group of people occupy themselves with something, they develop this activity and adjust it after their own needs and interests. Thus, among knitted or bead knitted things today, one doesn’t primarily find kettle holders, hats and dress collars. Young people transfer the beautiful patterns created by bead knitting on modern items. You find many examples of people who use bead knitting patterns to make their own cases for their laptop, mp3 or iPod and cellphone. This is a great way to add a personal touch to the handling of these seemingly hard, cold and impersonal technical gear that we depend so much on these days! Not that you can’t make your laptop personal (much of what’s inside of it is probably made by you…) but it can still be nice to have a warm, soft case made by using bead knitting patterns to put your portable computer in.

I myself started a while ago to knit cellphone cases and give to my friends. This has become fantastically appreciated! I started with a simple bead knitting pattern for a plain rectangular piece of knitting (I think that it was originally meant for the lower part of a sweater, but in beaded knitting you can of course feel free do change a pattern according to what you need at the moment). I knitted just as big a rectangle as I needed, with the seam allowance taken into account, and then I sew it together. How simple is that? I really recommend that you try this simple item for bead knitting! Another thing that’s popular to bead knit is clothes for dolls or Barbie dolls. Bead knitted clothes are fun to do and often become very nice. When knitting for dolls you don’t get the pleasure of wearing the clothes yourself, but you will surely enjoy the happy face of the child to whom you give the doll clothes. Another advantage is that it take much less time to knit for children or dolls that to yourself…

Bead knitting patterns are the best way to succeed with your bead knitting when you’re a beginner. Knitting with beads doesn’t have to be much more complicated than usual knitting, it only includes some more steps but will in return result in something much more than a knitted fabric! If you’re used to knit you will soon find that you can compose your own patterns and even knit with beads without a pattern. But at the beginning bead knitting patterns will be much helpful. You may find a lot of bead knitting patterns on the Internet, in books and in magazines. Apart from patterns you have to pay for, there a many free bead knitting patterns on the Internet and they are often easy to follow. On the Internet you may also find videos with knitting instructions to get started.

The trick with knitting and bead or beaded knitting is to get it smooth and even, and the bead knitting patterns will help you with that, but the more you practice the better you will succeed. But who says that the beaded knitting or other knitting always has to be flat and regular? You may be able to make a stitch work very stunning by knitting randomly and vary the tightness and the grip on the needles, i.e. not follow a bead knitting pattern. This technique, or rather lack of one, comes to its very best by using only one color. Here the stitches themselves becomes the decoration.

When you use a bead knitting pattern with comprehensive and clear instructions you save time and you know what your work will (hopefully) look like. But at the same time you have to be careful and “read” the pattern accurately or you won’t get the expected result. The worst feeling is when you discover that you have made something wrong when it is already too late to do something about it. That experience will teach you to take it slow and knit step by step and do exactly what the bead knitting pattern show. In beaded knitting you, for example, don’t want to miss a bead! If your bead knitting is composed by multiple colors the change between them has to come a an exact point to become a beautiful stitch work. Different bead knitting patterns may use different terms when deciding how many beads you will need. One pattern can by “6/0” mean that you need 12 beads per gram yarn. It’s not always obvious but fortunately most of the bead knitting patterns explain the relations between numbers and correspondent weights or stitches. The patterns also indicates sizes (adult or children, S, M or L or 36, 38, 40, 42 and so on).