Reinventing the Wheel.

Sometimes things seem like they should be simpler. For example, putting a bead onto your knitting. What I started out doing, was what everyone said to do. Work until you reach the stitch you want the bead on. 1. Put down one needle. 2. Pick up the crochet hook. 3. Stab the bead onto said hook (max # of beads that will fit on the hook at once - 2) . 4. Use hook to lift desired stitch to be beaded and slide the bead on. 5. Drop crochet hook. Repeat as needed per each beaded stitch. Was it me or was that WAAAAAy too many steps and way too inefficient?

I sat and thinked for a minute (ala' Pooh bear... Think think think..) The light above my head went on and I grabbed a piece of floral wire, put a curly loop onto the end so the bead wouldn't fall off, then carefully bent the other end of the wire into a tiny hook (this was the hardest part getting it small enough to fit through the bead and not to snag onto the yarn and never let go). Strung the wire full of beads, then realized a giant 14" long piece of wire loaded with beads is a bit unwieldy.I curled the wire into a spiral so the beads would still slide nicely and instantly eliminated step 3, the slowest and most tedious step, completely from the procedure. It is now twice as fast to slip those beads on. I can even have my eager small helpers put the beads on for me. Instead of picking up a new bead every stitch, I now have 100 beads ready to load. In the right pic you can see the next bead on the wire, right at the top. Sometimes the answer to something can be SO simple if you just think about it. Now I just need to dangle it off of a necklace so I don't have to keep grabbing it off my knee. Tidy it up, make it look professional, with a dangley clip on it and market the darn thing to all the knitters of the world still wrestling with one bead at a time...