Tuesday, April 24, 2012

No Fail! Wire Crochet!

About two months ago I bought these blue beads with a particular project in mind. Boy was I so sad and disappointed when it didn't work out. Who knew the holes would be too big for my nylon cording? Not me. So there they sat, in my bead box as a reminder of my lack of judgement. I couldn't stand it anymore. I felt like their one purpose in life was to taunt me. They are so cute but I just couldn't figure out what to do with them. It shouldn't be that hard, really! They are just round beads. And then the light bulb turned on...what is a no fail-no-matter-how-much-you-mess-up project, besides earrings? Wire Crochet! Anything and everything looks perfect with this technique!

This is all you need. Just a few different beads, wire, crochet hook and a clasp. The mug is a plus (completely recommended. It will make your life easier)

I gave the basics and tips for wire crocheting in my Wire Crochet Earrings post but I didn't go into much detail, so I will try to do it for your here.

First of all, if you aren't familiar with just a basic crochet stitch, I suggest you learn and practice with plain yarn so you don't waste a bunch of wire.
Just tie a knot, but don't tighten it, so you have a loop. Make sure you leave about a four inch tail. Then you are going to slip your hook through the loop, up from the bottom. Wrap your wire/yarn (from the spool, not the tail) around the hook, coming from the back then pull it down through your loop. Just repeat that until you get the feel, soon you'll find your groove and wont even realize how much you have done!

Okay, so for the necklace. My necklace is made of three strands. You can do whatever you want, although I wouldn't just do one. I used three different beads, one strand per bead kind. But you can mix this up too if you want. If you do mix up your beads on each strand, just remember not to stress too much about a pattern or the order they go on, because once you get the strands all together, it won't matter.

So lets start!
For my purple necklace I had one bead type that was 6mm and then two different beads that were 4 mm. For the strand with the 6mm I used 25 beads and then 32 each of the 4 mm. It fits my neck about like a choker, it's a little bit looser than that, but pretty close.
I wanted this necklace to be longer than that, but not too much, like down to my collar bone. So I added three beads to each strand and about an inch of extra wire on each end. So I got about 3 more inches of length.
My blue beads are 8 mm. I'll be honest, this was pushing it. They were pretty big, especially for a G hook. But like I said, this is my no fail, so it worked out just fine!

So to start your necklace just drop your wire spool into your mug and string all of your beads for the first strand onto the wire. Make your starting loop, then do three or four stitches. Next bring a bead up and do a stitch...(like in the picture). And that's all there is to it. One empty stitch, one stitch with a bead. I have to think about it as I go and say to myself "yes" for a bead and "no" for empty. Yes, no, yes, no...for the entire thing or I forget, but really it isn't that hard to look and see if you did an empty stitch or not. It just helps me, so I don't have to look. Also, if you do forget to do an empty stitch, or if you do two empty stitches, you really won't be able to tell once you get all your strands together. I was actually talking to my dad while I was doing my blue bead strand, and you could tell. I had a couple of beads together without any empties, and I had like 3 empties before another bead. No fail! Once I got all the strands together I couldn't even tell how bad I had messed up on it.
*Note* Because of my larger bead I probably should have done two empty stitches in between...next time
 (I forgot to put my empty stitches in, just in case you are looking at this, and can't figure it out. This is just bead after bead.)

So you are going to make three strands all the same way, just different beads (or not, if you want all the same, which would be really pretty too!)

Once you have all three strands, take two of them and kind of wrap one strand around the other. Then take your third strand and wrap it around the two. You can also braid the three strands together instead of wrapping them. That is super pretty too! 

To finish the ends, take your tails and gently twist them together. Remember that this thin wire can break if you twist too much or pull to hard. Clip the wires so they are even. Thread the wires through your clasps then just kind of wrap the wires around themselves to finish it off. You can put your clasps right up to your stitches or give it some space if you want a bit more length.

And that's it! Voila!!!!

Come back tomorrow to check out my matching earrings! So cute and completely different from the wire crochet earrings I made before!

1 comment:

  1. Cute! Love it, wish I could do this. Thanks for the idea.