Now we get to the toughest part of making a beaded ring, at least for me it is. This is “closing” up the ring. The ring is basically made up of the 10 to 12 loops you’ve done so far but with the ends tied together. I had a really hard time figuring out the correct way to tie it off… and this still may not be the most optimum way.
The problem is that if you don’t tie it off correctly and then cut off the tag ends, it leaves a sharp edge of the monofilament that will irritate the skin of the ring wearer.
Anyhow, the method I use for closing off the ring is first position the loops so that the first loop you did points up. Now take the line end on your right hand side and “pick up” three beads. With the line end on your left hand side, pick up only TWO beads. Then thread the right hand line end through the topmost bead of that very first loop at the top. This may take some effort, to shove the line through. Finally pick up ONE bead with that same right hand line.
When you’ve finished these steps, you should have something that looks like Figure 4a. I know it looks precarious but that will change very soon!
Moving on … now you want to start to close the ring by pulling on the right hand line (the line that has the ONE bead still on it). If you’ve done everything correctly, the beaded ring will start to close up as in to Figure 4b.
Now we get to the question of what kind of knot to tie your beaded ring off. I’ve tried various different ones and always come back to the simple “square knot”.
A square knot is basically two overhand knots tied in a row; the first overhand knot you go right over left and the second one you got left over right. I don’t have the time to explain more here, but you can probably look it up if you don’t know what I’m talking about.
Anyhow, in Figure 4c, you’ll see I’ve turned the beaded ring on it’s side (basically rotated it clockwise 90 degrees from Figure 4b) and tied a simple overhand knot to close it down. You want to cinch this knot down, and then make another overhand knot like Figure 4d. Remember if you went “right over left” for the first knot to go “left over right” for this second one.
