Tying Thread Off and On

Best Practice

• Always tie on/off thread in the middle of a row (avoiding increases/decreases). If you tie on and off at the end of the row additional thread will show. However, in the middle of the row this thread will be hidden.
• Tie off thread in an area of beadwork that closely matches the colour of the thread. If you tie off in an area which is a contrasting colour it is more likely the thread will show through.
• When you cut the thread pull thread taught and with a pair of thin bladed scissors (i.e. embroidery) or thread zapper cut thread as close as possible to the beadwork. The enables the thread to disappear inside the beads, hidden from view.
• On beadwork stuffed with wadding, before cutting the thread, go through the beadwork and the wadding to the other side, then snip off the thread so the tail of thread disappears inside the wadding. This gives you a longer tail of thread so even less chance of it showing or coming loose.
• Try to tie off to the right of the beadwork and tie on to the left (or vice versa). We don't want to be tying off and on using the same beads as all the extra thread might distort any spacing between them.