Threading Beads onto Yarn

I'm making the Beads of Earth scarf from Scarf Style for my mom. I hope she likes it because I've already managed to draw blood working on it and I haven't even cast-on yet. Step one is to string 357 beads onto the yarn. I started with a "Big Eye" beading needle and found that they weren't kidding about the hand sharpened ends. I lost count of how many times I stabbed myself with it before I remembered the "Flexible and Magnetic" needle I bought. That one worked much better. It is thinner and flexible enough that I was able to wrap it around my finger to get a good grip. The other thing that helped was separating the four plys of the yarn and threading half through the needle from one side and the other half through the other side. Once I figured that out threading the beads went much quicker.