A Mini Project for Non-Wizards

Math problem: if you have a craft project that takes a person familiar with the technique at least 4 hours to complete, how might you conduct a class of newbies to finish a project in under 2 hours?

When I was invited to teach a class on Viking Knit at the my local arts center, I didn't think it could be done. The smallest thing I usually create is a bracelet, which would take way too long for a single class. I'd have to be a time-condensing wizard to make that happen. Since I'm not a wizard, I needed to get creative.

Solution: invent a different, smaller project for the students.

I was inspired by the necklace below, first found on Pintrest, created by the woman who posted it to this web page.

First, I have to say, her technique is lovely, and the pearls are a really great accent. Thank you for creating this, Necklace Maker!

My students will not have time to double knit or to add accent beads, but I figured a pendant like this would be an excellent beginner project.

Here is my prototype:

I think this will look great on a suede necklace cord. It took me about 45 minutes on my first exploratory try. It only needs about 4 of 5 inches of VK chain, a jump ring, and a necklace to hang it on.

I'm super excited to teach my first class in a couple weeks!

Look Both Ways (Before Buying Beads)

Here are two bracelets I made. Only one of them exists.

Ok, ok, you caught me. Only one of these exists in the present. The first picture is before, the second is after alteration. I simply couldn't stand the first version....

In the beginning, after I'd finished "knitting" the bulk of the bracelet, I was very happy with the quality and colors, and I eagerly awaited its completion. But when I put the chain together with the end caps and clasp, something was missing. The design just begged for more flair.

I thought maybe a nice focal bead would do the trick, but none of the beads I already owned fit the bill -- they were too small or were not the right color.

To the hobby shop!!! I bought a string of some heavy glass beads whose color was a opalescent pink and champagne and gold. They were shiny and sparkly and -- I thought -- an excellent color match. (They were also on sale. Win.) I proudly brought them home, smug as a Viking sailing back from a good day's pillaging. Until I made a discovery....

Side A:

Side B:

Foiled by my own enthusiasm! I hadn't checked both sides of the beads to see if they were the same color or not. Who would have thought I'd have had to??? The first side was one set of colors, the second was a funny iridescent green.

I didn't like this green at all. It didn't suit the colors in the weave. But I wanted to give it a chance, and so played around, paired it with some smaller beads, and agonized for quite some time....

In the end, I still didn't like the big green bead. The smaller beads around it also rang hollow. The longer I examined my handiwork, the less I liked it, until I marched down to the hobby shop for new materials.

When back home, I cut the beads out, made my adjustments, and unveiled my new creation to the world.

These feather-shaped charms resonate much better with the gypsy "spirit" that inspired the chain in the first place, as well as improving the design in general. Maybe the sparkly big bead wasn't terrible, but I think I prefer the more earthy feeling of the metal feathers.

Personally, after all that trouble, I'm glad the other bracelet only exists in the past.

Variation on a Theme

This is my latest addition to my Etsy menagerie. It is a double knit pattern in light green-yellow (or chartreuse) silver-plated 26-gauge wire.

(For the record, the brand is Artistic Wire. I used a silver wire of this brand once before, and was disappointed by the coating peeling off. Not cool! But my second try with it was very satisfying -- lightweight, quite flexible, and no peeling!)

This bracelet is actually inspired by a recent custom ordered piece. Here is a photo.

This second bracelet is single knit with black and peacock blue beads inside the weave. (Incidentally, the beads are of Czech glass, whose sparkle I love and whose price I can afford!) Also, as you can see, I didn't put beads on each end of the chain, but instead there are bronze colored end caps.

As this piece was a custom order, I did not choose the wire color on my own, but rather I consulted with the buyer to make a special online purchase. Buying a single spool of wire online is not something I'd do normally, because shipping about doubles the total cost. It's also risky, as is any other online order.

I report with gratitude that the color was just what I'd hoped, the wire didn't peel or have any other defects, and furthermore, after I'd finished with the custom order, I was left with some wire to spare for my own amusement!

I really liked the blue beads with the green, so I stuck with that in the next bracelet, adding some new colors. (The beads from my matching madness have a cameo as well!) I also wanted the weave stronger and stiffer, hence the double knit. I like my second bracelet, but I think the color is so bright and fun that it calls for a design that is a little more complex.

Maybe another variation on this theme is in the future!

You Leather Believe It! (Flight of the Brain Bee)

Inspiration is notoriously capricious....

Over the summer, I was flipping through an Arhaus jewelry catalog (see the company's site here), and saw their "Swirls and Pearls" wrap bracelet, shown below.

This image entered my mind, and planted itself there like a flowering plant. A funny thing happened then -- a brain bee came and visited this flower, then went and cross pollinated with my Viking Knit plant. The seed thereby produced dropped into my cerebral soil and matured into what later became this bracelet.

Something about the leather really captivated me. I think that the idea of the hide being a base or anchor for the VK chain is not only an interesting experiment into different media, but the qualities of each material compliment each other and form into a whole that they couldn't have been all by themselves.

Thank you, mysterious brain bee!

Balance and Weight

Have you ever had a piece of jewelry (or clothing) that just refused to sit on you the way you wanted? Did you fidget with it to set it straight, only to have it shift again and again? Sometimes things do this because they are improperly balanced. Balance is one distinguishing factor between a good piece of jewelry and a bad one.

This may sound snobbish, but I've made enough less-than-stellar bracelets to be convinced of the difference.

Imagine how a simple piece of yarn feels around your wrist. Say that you want the little knot facing up, sitting on the top of your arm. It probably stays there fairly well, with only some shifting.

Now, imagine putting a heavy glass bead on the yarn. Because of it's weight, it will always swing underneath your wrist. If you wanted it on top, then that's bad design, since the bead is not sitting where you want it.

But let's say you DO want it down there. Fine. But now the yarn is kind of tight around the top part of your wrist, and it is uncomfortable. That's bad design. A piece of jewelry should both look and feel just right.

While I'd love to pretend to always make perfect jewelry, I just don't.

Most of my first bracelets did not have heavy things attached to them, so all this balance stuff was not a problem. My first piece to be heavily accoutered was this one:

It feels great on my wrist. While the bead cluster does tend to fall to the underside of my wrist, it happens slowly, and the VK portion is stiff enough that it keeps the distribution of weight spread out. Yay for me!

On the bracelet below, however, the pearl cluster drags itself down on the wearer's wrist.

An otherwise attractive piece, it is not balanced well.

So here is another lesson on my way to actually making perfect jewelry. Or so I hope.

Re-purposing Looks Good On You

When I first started making VK, I naturally wove only simple chains. But within a month or two, I could tell I would get bored without other elements to add.

On my second trip to the hobby shop where I usually got my supplies, I bought a small bag of wooden beads. They were fun for a while, but it was a bit monotonous with only those. I wanted more things to play around with, but I did not have a lot of money to spend buying new supplies all the time.

The answer to fixing boredom on the cheap? Used jewelry!





This piece is made from a pair of earrings that I found at a garage sale.

For a while, the earrings sat in my box, lonely, and without purpose. Poor things. But I just didn't know what to do with them! I just hoped that someday they might be useful.

Their time to shine came after I'd woven a double-knit chain of red and gold. It was an experimental color combo, and indeed I didn't know how I was going to finish it off.

I think you can see what happened next. I disassembled and reassembled the earrings into a more bracelet-friendly shape, and attached one end to the chain and the other to a clasp. The earrings even had some gold-colored leaves that I artfully positioned at my whim.









The advantages of using re-purposed jewelry don't stop at their low cost. Not only does it introduce me to other peoples' jewelry design, which stretches my concept of what is possible for me to do, but using old jewelry means that my piece is absolutely unique to any other I might try to make. I will never find earrings like that ever again.

Read my next blog to see how his beautiful experiment taught me something that I'd never thought of before.

Breaking the Rules (Which I've Made Up Anyways)

Here is my silver double knit bracelet from my last blog.

A sharp observer might notice that this piece does not have end caps on the raw ends of the chain like most of my other works. See how the end of the weave just stops right next to the pearls?

"No!" you say, "How criminal to leave the ends uncovered! It defies all sense!" Or maybe that's just what my inner control freak says, since I've never made a piece this way before.

There is a method to my madness, though.

I tend to design by my gut -- if I'm not pleased with a look, I will try something else.
When I was finishing this breacelet, I put the bead caps on to see how it fit, and the bead caps seemed too large to me, like when a little kid tries on a full-sized hard hat. So I fiddled with the combination of beads and end caps and clasp until I reached a look that satisfied me.

It may be a matter of taste, but I think my rebellion was not without success.

Double-Knit Explained

This next bracelet was an experiment in the thinner 26-gauge wire. Thinner wire is more flexible, and so allows for a chain with a smaller diameter, more flexibility, and double- or triple-knit weave.

Double knit looks more dense than single knit. People sometimes think "double" refers to two wires being woven at the same time. It actually means that one wire is wrapped around a "row" twice. I make my loops around my dowel like I would for a single knit, but when I finish going all the way around, I make a second set of loops around the ones I just made. After completing this, I start on another "row."

It can be a tricky technique because it is easier to make a mistake in the bramble of wire it makes! But I enjoyed the challenge, and maybe someday I will even try triple knit.

Check out my next blog to learn more about how I finished this piece.

Further Creations, New Designs

It is my misfortune on this adventure not to have all the proper tools of visual record-keeping. Not only do I lack a fully-functioning digital camera, but I also am still learning how to photograph my work well. So we will all have to bear with some blurry pictures, I am sad to report. But that is part of the adventure! So, onward!

I am pleased to present to you my next four pieces (made in summer 2011). These pieces are not especially magnificent, but I was quite excited to have completed them. I was just starting to get the hang of things, and I even got to experiment with some new elements.

In this image there are four new creations, as well as my first bracelet (the green one). The silver one with the pendant is a necklace, and the others are bracelets made of copper.

Here is a close-up of the pendant. Those who know more about jewelry-making than I will see how clumsily I attached it to the necklace. I am still searching for better ways of doing this, as I intend to make more pieces with pendants. If you have ideas, feel free to suggest in comments.

The copper bracelet below is made with the double-knit technique. It's quite a different look than the single-knit used in my other works, and it cannot be made quite as small in diameter as single with wire of the same gauge.

I am rather proud of this next bracelet; not only did I craft very it quickly, but it also represents the introduction of beads into the loops. The winds were strong in my crafting sails that morning! The beads are wooden; the wire, copper.