Wire Crochet Bracelet

Tonight I was playing with a piece of 30 ga silver wire, just twisting it through my fingers and for some reason I decided I was going to do some wire crochet. I've never done it, but I figured what the heck - may as well try. I gave it a go with some brass wire first, and while not difficult to do, it's not as easy as you'd think. I found I do it best with the 30 ga dead soft, and this is what I made. It's not finished yet - I will be adding more beads and the ends have to be finished. I'm going to fashion a loop and crystal clasp for it, I think.

I'm wire-wrapping the ends, creating a scalloped edge:

You have to use a gentle hand when doing wire crochet, otherwise your stitches will be too tight and you have to be very careful to make them uniform.

The bottom row is teardrop freshwater pearls spaced with pink Swarovski bicone crystals. I scattered crystals throughout the bracelet and the last row is all clear Swarovski bicones.

I have a large round faceted AB crystal I'm going to use as a "button" and create a loop closure of 2mm swarovski clear round crystals.

4 Tips for Designing Jewelry on Demand - Daily Blogs - Beading Daily

This is an incredibly concise and wonderful how-to for designing a beaded project from Jean Campbell, an award-winning bead designer. If you're like me, you'll read this and think: "wow! I've been making it harder on myself than I had to!" Happy Reading.


4 Tips for Designing Jewelry on Demand - Daily Blogs - Beading Daily

Vintage Beaded Bag - Totally Blog-worthy!

I found this at my local thrift store for $1.98 today. Naturally I snatched it before anyone else could. No thought required. It's perfect inside and out. Not a bead missing, no yellowing on the silk lining, original Hong Kong label, frame in excellent shape, clasp perfect, strap perfect. I couldn't believe it and since I do a lot of beading, I felt this purse was blog-worthy. If anyone who sees this post can identify the age for me, I'd be grateful. I'm thinking 30's-40's.

Bead Spinner - it ROCKS!!

I love my bead spinner. This is a suncatcher I made tonight. I think next one, I'll make the dragonflies, flowers and leaves in advance, wire them to the bare wire and thread the leftover wire tails through the beads already on the wire and then load more beads - that way the wire for the add-ons won't show as much. At least that's the plan. :)

French Beaded Rose

This little fleur is actually huge. It's got five layers of petals. The interior is AB gold miyuki 11/0 seeds and the outer petals are a mix of AB gold, maize, light brown and matte cream. I had to use two floral wires, bent in half to support the weight of the flower, and a ton of floral tape. The stem, which you can't see, is finished in green ribbon. I was going to add leaves, but I felt that would be gilding the lily (or rose, as the case may be!)

French Beaded Flower - My first one! YAY!

Well, I was asked to teach Victorian and French beading recently. I can do Victorian, but I'd never done French, so for the past two nights I've been teaching myself. Last night I worked on just getting the technique right. Thank GOD for a bead spinner! Tonight I started at around 11:00 PM (it's now 3:40 am) and finished up at about 1:30 a.m. I'm tired, but I accomplished my goal and now I just have to finesse it a little. The leaves are too small for the flower, but overall, I'm happy.

Victorian Beading - Today's Flower

I love the colors on this one, but I didn't achieve the effect I was going for, which was a lacy, open look to the edges of the petals. A fellow artisan suggested the lacy, open look might succeed with a lighter-coloured flower, so I'll try that next.

The "space" you see between the petals is wire weaving where the petals were stitched together using wire. I wove it through the loops at the end of each bead row, joining the petals together.

These actually look lovely under low lights or candlelight because of the Swarovski Crystals in them.

Front View:

Side View:

And both flowers together: (can you tell I'm proud of them?) For a first try at this, I AM pretty proud. Now I have to get REALLY good at it.