Crochet Bead Necklace

I've finished my first Bead Necklace made using the Turkish Loop Crochet method, instructions for which can be found here http://www.hookyarnandneedles.com/oldstuff/trkloop. I struggled a bit with the written instructions, but a friend on ravelry gave me a demonstration and then all I had to do was practice.

I used size 30 cotton thread size 0.6mm crochet hooks and beads ranging from 11 to 6 in size. All the beads had to be threaded first, which took a couple of hours, because I wanted them in a specific order, so couldn't use my bead spinner. The bead colours are silver, frosted white, pale aqua, pale apple green and ab coated silver lined clear. I arranged them in a 6 bead repeat pattern.

The work progressed quite quickly once I got the hang of it. I just had to be careful not to drop my working loop, using a 0.6mm hook meant the loop was very small and difficult to find if I needed to pick it up again. Each loop I created consisted of 6 beads, there were 3 loops per round. I finished it off by attaching a small lobster claw clasp at one end and a jump ring at the other.

Bead Crochet

I have done crochet for over 30 years, and I learnt beading about 3 years ago, but I had never tried putting the two together.
It was at a recent meeting of the Southern Derbyshire Knitters Ravelry group, that I asked one of the members to show me how to crochet with beads.
When I got home I dug through my supplies and found some cream no 10 crochet cotton and a box full of size 8 seed beads.

I used my recently purchased bead spinner to thread all the beads, which not only saved time, but also resulted in far fewer bead being flicked across the room. (The bead flicking is down to poor control of a beading needle when threading by hand)

Once all the beads had been strung, I sat down with a 1.50mm hook and made a 6 chain ring, followed by working slip stitch into each chain, continuing in a spiral.
I will admit that I ripped it back completely about 3 times and also ripped back a few rounds occasionally as I progressed, but I finally used all the beads and this bracelet is the result.