Day 31: I find kumihimo to be a very relaxing craft, so I decided to change it up a bit to add beads to the customary braided cords. This makes the third technique I have used to create the flower pattern shown here: regular beadwork, crochet and now kumihimo. Each method has its own drawbacks and advantages. Beadwork tends to be more rigid, and while that is fine for short sections, it doesn't work well as a full-length necklace. The advantage is that each bead is picked up individually, and doesn't require meticulously accurate stringing of a pattern. Crocheting with a slip-stitch is a lengthy and somewhat tedious process, plus the beads need to be strung in order on the thread prior to starting the work, making a rather cumbersome mass when wound back onto the ball. The advantage to crochet is that it is more flexible while still being reasonably compact. Made in kumihimo, the work is more open, leaving thread visible if the beads are irregular, but the necklace has a nice fluidity and a more obvious spiral. An additional plus is that more beads can be added to the strand as required, and errors in picking are easy to remedy. I started with 120 on each thread and have added more in batches of sixty several times. However, given the construction of kumihimo versus that of crochet, accidental breakage of a strand in the finished product would result in a major disaster in the kumihimo version as opposed to a minor (if annoyingly demanding) repair in crochet.
