I have a denim jacket that I am getting ready to embellish, and have been toying with the idea of doing some decorative stitching on it and adding beads.  I did not play until evening yesterday, as it consisted mostly of errands and computer work with a family get together thrown in.   I sat down at the machine with a scrap hem from a pair of jeans to try to figure out how this was going to work.  (It was in my head and had to get out… I had been thinking about it all day!)

I picked out dark red thread to coordinate with some other design that I plan on using and the stitch I wanted to use.  This stitch was chosen because there was perfect space between the “dots” for the beads.  I first stitched a few repetitions of the stitch design to figure out precisely which stitch the bead needed to be put on the needle at.

Now comes the time to add the bead.  I used a pin and the long pointy tweezers that came with my serger to place the large holed bead on the needle.  The needle was lowered using the hand wheel instead of the machine’s foot pedal.   I raised the presser foot up once the needle had gone into the fabric and back up (both being done with the hand wheel),  Then I moved the fabric very slightly back, so that the presser foot would be sitting on the bead.  I then completed the next repetition of the design, and repeated these steps.

So… what was my final analysis?  I will not be doing this at this time.  If you look closely on the picture, you can see that there are some loops of thread that form near the bead.  This is from the struggle to get the bead on to the needle, and the manual working of the wheel.  Secondly, the bead being under the presser foot threw the design pattern off noticeably.  Some machines may have a special beading foot that allows one to sew over the bead without issue, but I don’t have that.  It also was tedious, and I think it would be quicker to thread, knot, and hand sew the beads down.   But it was in my mind, so I had to try!

Now I have to figure out what I AM going to do!  This won’t be the last you see of this project!

What are you creating today???