How to Tie Off and Add New Thread in Bead Weaving

SKU VID-0271
Designer: Andrea Morici
An essential skill in bead weaving, this video will show you how to tie off and add new thread.
Audio Transcript
Hi. In this video I'm going to show you how to tie off and add on more thread when bead weaving. Here I have a square stitch bracelet that I've begun. But I don't quite have enough thread to complete it. So what I need to do is I need to tie off my tread that I'm working with or my working thread you can call it and weave it into the beginning of the bracelet that I have here and then I'm going to add more thread on and I'll show you how to do both of those. Don't wait until it's too short. I would give yourself a good at least six to eight inches. This is a lot more than that but I'll show you using this much. What you want to do is you want to thread your needle underneath some thread that is connecting the nearest two beads. Then tie an overhand knot around it. So what that means is I have my loop. I'm just going to go through it once and tie. Just to be on the secure side I'm going to do one more of those or if you want you can go around a needle twice and pull tight. That's gonna be a pretty secure knot but you don't want that unsightly thing hanging out there, so I'm just gonna take my needle and start working my way through the beadwork and I'm going to back and forth. Depending on what kind of pattern I'm doing or kind of beadwork I'm doing. Sometimes I like to tie it off again. So down a little I'll do another little knot and then continue to weave in the remainder of your thread. Now once you have woven down through your pattern just a bit, I still have some leftover thread but that's okay, then you can either use your scissors or a thread zapper to trim off the access thread. So now what I"m going to do is I'm going to remove excess thread and you can toss that 'cause there's not much left. I'm going to cut off another length of fresh thread. I like to work with a lot because I don't really care for tying off and adding on. So I'll use probably about three yards atleast. So now that I have my new length of working thread on my needle. I'm going to tie it into the bead work that I have going here. What I like to do is once again I'll pick a spot somewhere down from the very end of where I'm working. I'm going to pull my thread almost alway through and I just going to make a surgeons knot and we have another video that describes exactly what that is. Then I'm simply going to weave through my beadwork until I get to where I was working from originally. Now ideally you'd like to come out exactly where your thread was coming out but in the case of square stitch as you can see I'm coming out of a red bead whereas before I was coming out of this bead. It doesn't really matter as much a square stitch. So now I'm ready to weave on some more and I just have this little tail here and since these holes are so large in these beads. I can pretty much not add a needle and just weave in the tail. If you do need to you can also thread that end through a needle and weave the rest in. Just cut off any excess thread you have on that tail. And you're all set to go. Go to for all of your beading supplies needs!

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