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Hi! This is Megan with Beadaholique.com and today I'm going to show you
How to Choose
the correct needle for
your bead work projects
it's a little bit of a overview of the most common types of needles
and which ones you would want to use
for which project
the most common
one I use most
is just a regular standard
english beading needle
I have a size assortment of tens and thirteens
these are going to be what you use
if you're doing bead weaving
or you're working with beads that have a small hole
or if you're working with a fine beading thread
you in here two tens and two fifteens
Needles are sized so that if you have a higher number you have a thinner
needle
so if you're
going to work with something more delicate you need the higher number thirteen
or twelve maybe and if you're using something that's got bigger holes like a
size ten
seed bead
as opposed to an eleven you might be able to work with the size ten needle
also it's going to depend on
the type of
thread you're using
wildfire
is going to be a little bit
heavier then like a fireline or a nymo
as you can see
the wildfire fits just fine through
the size ten. You can always run it
between your finger and your thumb nail too
and you can fit wildfire into a size twelve beading needle
if you work at it
so the english beading needles are going to give you a very
slim profile
to fit through
your smaller hole beads
including a seed bead or even just
a czech glass bead
It's going to fit right through there
that's your
standard english beading needle
next I'm going to talk about big eye needles
big eye needles are probably
second most commonly used for me
if you do more stringing it might be your most commonly used
needle and I have here another
assortment
so I have some different lengths of the big eye needle
the big eye needle
is going to be really handy
for use with
of thicker string. So a thicker thread. If you're going to use
silk cord
if you're going to use a
Super lon
nylon cord
it's not going to fit through a regular needle
the big eye needles
perfect for that
just take your finger nails and
pull the sides of the needle apart
put the tip of your thread in and pull it to the end
give it a tug
and that's
the easiest ones to thread, very easy to thread
the big eye needle
you're gonna need to have a slightly bigger hole on your beads
I have here kind of an medium sized hole bead
it will fit through that
and a larger hole bead will be a breeze
but you're not going to be able to put this
through
a small hole bead
if you're doing
stinging with
beads that have
a hole that's
probably you need it to be
over a millimeter, depends on what you're using with it. If you're using a really thin
thread with it
you could still use it on a smaller hole bead
usually the advantage in a big eye is that it allows you to thread
onto a slightly thicker cord
another type of needle
that we offer is the flexible twisted wire needles
these again are going for beads that have a slightly larger hole
these one's are
interesting. They're really flexible
they're kind of hard to see. I'll hold it up
to a dark background
they're just twisted wire
with a loop at one end
they're not particularly sharp
or pointy. They're just to pull through
and the loop
sense it's flexible it will actually contract a little
so if you're going to
put it through a large hole bead
get thread it
then you'll go through that no problem with these
it just pulls right through
on a bead with a slightly smaller hole
it will contract and it will close the loop a little bit
and it will also pull through
so this is going to be another alternative, this is really handy if you
need to be able to
have your needle flex a lot
to get through a curved opening
and then if you need it to be able to move
a lot while you're
stringing
and one other option I want to
talk about is Gum Arabic
Beading Glue. This is what you would use if you want to create a thread needle
which if you want to not use a needle and you just wanna stiffen your thread
and the really big advantage to that is that you don't have to double the
the thickness of your thread
on all these other
options you end up having to pull
a folded piece with two ends through
with the Gum Arabic you're going to just end up with one
so it's basically just going to
stiffen
the tip of your string
and
make it hard enough to go through on its own
so just dip the end in
I wipe off the excess. You'll need to wash your hands
let it dry for a couple of minutes and that will get nice
and stiff and you can just thread onto
your stringing material
and one other thing I was going to mention is
read the description for the products that your
buying because
a select number of products do actually come with a needle
such as griffin silk
when you pull out the griffin silk
at the top of the card
there is actually a needle on there
and what's on here is pretty much
a twisted wire needle
so it's gonna be
kind of bent up but it totally works and its on there. It's actually connected
to your silk cord
and you can use that to do your stringing
just like you would with
twisty wire or the big eye needles so
keep that in mind
and check it out because some of your products might actually come with a
needle on them, then you don't have to pick one
that is kind an overview for
the needle options for jewelry making and how you choose which to use.