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Today’s Meet and Make is with the wonderful Maya Kuzman! She is an English teacher and translator by profession, but also a devoted knitter, a struggling crocheter, and an aspiring seamstress by choice, desire, and necessity to create. She is driven and nurtured by all things beautiful surrounding her. Keep scrolling to learn more about Maya and learn how to make some fun crochet beads!

10 Fun Facts about Maya:

1. When I grow up I want to have a line of children’s clothing.
2.  I love all colors except for white and black.
3.  I am addicted to chocolate.
4.  I have huge collections of postcards, Christmas cards and stamps.
5.  In the past I corresponded with pen-pals from more than 50 countries.
6.  At university my favourite subjects were English Literature and the Course in Shakespeare.
7.  In reference to the above, every female student was in love with Mr.Darcy, yours truly included.
8.  In elementary school I won the fastest reader competition (reading aloud).
9.  Being a book worm I can get lost in libraries and bookshops for hours.
10.  I love to look for images in coffee mugs, clouds and trees.

How to Make Crochet Beads:

This is a tutorial you are really going to like because the finished product is adorable!
How to make crocheted beads in a few easy steps.
Here we go:

Terms used: stitch (st.), single crochet (sc), single crochet 2 together (sc2tog)

Start by chaining three chains. Join with a slip stitch with the last chain from hook to make a ring.

Row 1: 6 sc in ring
Row 2: 2 sc in each stitch for 12 stitches
Row 3: 1 sc in one stitch, 2 sc in the next; repeat until you get 18 st.
Rows 4 – 5: sc around for 18 st. (You may stuff it here)
Row 6: 1 sc, sc2tog for 18 st.
Row 7 – end: sc2tog until end.
Tie the end, thread an embroidery needle and hide the tail inside the bead.

Tips: For the blue bead I used a six-stranded yarn and a 3 mm hook. The red bead from the intro picture is made by a thinner yarn and a 1.9 mm hook. You can see the difference in size. Hence, by combining different yarn and hooks you can have beads in different sizes.
Also, if you want to make bigger beads, just repeat row 4 until you achieve the desired size.

As you can see, I used filling for my beads, but you can use this pattern for wooden (plastic) beads too, only you have to insert it earlier and again employ the row 4 instructions.

I usually stuff it after row 6, but you may find it difficult, thus I thought that it may be wise if you stuff it before. Anyway, try both to find out what works best for you.