Success!

On Wednesday I wrote about trying the (new to me) "Curl and Swirl" wire-weaving style by Making It Easy With Liz that I'd read about on Pearl Blay's blog. You can read about my less-than-successful efforts here.

Meanwhile, my real job intervened and I didn't get a chance to go back and try, try, try again until a few minutes ago. Yes, minutes. Once you figure it out, and kind of have an idea of what you want to do with the particular stone you're using, this is quite a quick technique to do. Meaning, it either works or it doesn't because if you goink the wires at all then you pretty much have to start over: the beauty of the swirls lies in their smooth, sinuous, unbroken curves.

The primary reason my first efforts weren't successful is because I didn't use two wires in parallel.

Here are my two do-overs, using the same two citrines from Wednesday. Finally the fronts look marginally better than the backs!

As a comparison, here's the picture of my first efforts:

These first two (above) maybe don't look so bad -- but they're very wobbly and look kinda wimpy. You'll also note in the video that Liz is quite specific about crossing the pairs of wires behind each other early on. This interweaving locks the entire piece together, giving you a very sturdy base on which to attach and tighten the stone.

Closeup of the the asymmetrical citrine pendant:

Closeup of the tall citrine pendant:

I will have both of these strung on Greek leather and for sale at the market tomorrow morning. I have a small selection of copper chain, as well, if you prefer. Please email me if you're interested in either (I take PayPal, Interac/email transfer, cash works, too!). I will definitely be making more of these pendants in different stones, and I am always happy to do a special request. Yo, guys? Only five weeks 'til Valentine's Day.

Thanks for stopping by, and hope to see you at the market tomorrow!

Working On A New Wire-Weaving Skill...

The other day I opened Pearl Blay's Beading Gem post on How to Make a Swirling Double Wire Pendant by Making It Easy with Liz, and my immediate response was "Oooooooh". I've been seeing these double wire swirls around the Internet more and more frequently but hadn't attempted any of my own. Time to break out the one-pound rolls of copper wire I bought just before Christmas at Robert Hall Originals in St. George.

In the midst of all my oooohing, I kind of glossed over Pearl's warning about this project not being for beginners. I also didn't really read the part of the title underneath the video on YouTube where it says "Experienced". The result became more Oopsies than Ooooh.

Last night, I queued up the video and watched again as far as the materials list (I'd previously watched the entire video through once). I dug out some very chunky citrine beads I acquired who knows when or from whom, cut some wire and forged ahead doing what I thought I remembered. The first part went well but, yet again, where I screwed up was finishing off the pendants. I ended up with pointless clumps and lumps of twiddles going nowhere. Because the wire was hardening at an alarming rate by now, I also bent and goinked the wire and the whole pendant got really floppy.

With my first attempt, I also ended up with the back looking better than the front and therefore showing the bail (which in Liz's design is intended to be hidden). The second pendant went a little bit better in terms of initial swirls, but failed even more miserably as a functional pendant.

Here is Liz's picture of what the pendants are supposed to look like:

Here are my first two efforts. The fronts of my two pendants, where the top bits are working well... but then it kind of all falls apart, doesn't it!?!?

...and the backs. The swoopy swirls work on the one side of the back of the pendant on the left, but... again, they're on the back, and both wraps kinda fell apart on me anyway:

All I can say is, good thing I bought a pound of wire -- each of these pendants took about two feet of wire, the bottom halves of which are going to have to be tossed. I'm thinking I might be able to recoup the top bits, hammer the wire ends into curves and wire-weave them into something else.

By this time it was getting late. I still had all the citrines dumped on my bead mat anyway, some large matte black obsidian beads were in close proximity, so I threw this together in only a couple of minutes. This is one bracelet I really like:

So far so good this morning: there is no typing, and so it's back to the drawing board, but first I'll watch Liz's video a few more times.

Thanks for stopping by!

Sharilyn Miller on Craftsy...

I just won this contest!!! for 50% off a video course from Craftsy presented by Sharilyn Miller via Pearl Blay's blog, the Beading Gem Journal. 

Bonus for me is that Craftsy has discounted all their courses over the American Thanksgiving, so my prize now means that the course is free for me. I highly recommend the two that I've been/will soon be learning from (and, no, I don't get any kickback from Craftsy, however, if you go here and click through to Craftsy, Pearl will get a commission on any sales).

As soon as I get back from The Gem Expo this weekend, I will be diving into Sharilyn's course and playing with my long-neglected torch. This means new stuff will be showing up on my table at the Woodstock Farmers Market in the run-up to Christmas, as well. 

While we're on the subject of the farmer's market, Jim and Jan Post of Caravan Candles will be occupying my spot this Saturday, November 21st, while I'm in Toronto, and we'll be sharing my tables up until Christmas, too. 

I'm also taking part in a Christmas fundraiser on Sunday, December 6th at the animal rescue office next door to the market at the Fairgrounds, deets to follow. 

See you there!

Wire-weaving...

Picked up Sarah Thompson's book last night from my mailbox. It was shipped from Amazon.ca Tuesday morning and got here in the day's mail south of the middle of nowhere Thursday afternoon. Not bad!

I'm severely dyslexic when it comes to understanding written directions and even photographs, in particular when it involves continuous sequential movements like the various wire weaves (or oil painting, say. From a practical standpoint, I still don't know what an underpainting is and how one uses it to get to a finished painting. It's a completely baffling mystery to me.) Given that, I became happier and happier that I subscribed to her video at Craftsy, and watched it straight through first to get an overview, because I would've become very frustrated if I only had the book -- again, that's just me. The biggest difference between her video and the multitude of others on YouTube is that most of them that I've seen assume you already know the basics (but you don't know that when you start watching them), and Sarah anticipates every question as it occurs to you as a first-time viewer.

Now I'm working my way through the video again -- slowly -- from the beginning. Well, this first weave at any rate. Yikes.

I'm using 18 gauge for the base wires (three) and 28 gauge to do the wrapping. For what it's worth, about 2 feet of wrapping wire does maybe an inch of this modified soumak weave I'm starting with.

Not the most exciting picture in the world, but... it's a start, and shows just under an inch of weave.

One of the things Sarah advises in the video to use are kumihomo bobbins to wrap the longer lengths of wire. Not having bobbins, I tried wrapping wire around a pill bottle and taping it with painter's tape, but it quickly fell apart. The pill bottles are actually kind of heavy. Then the wire got too kinked so I had to cut it. I think it will work for now, but need to use more tape. Don't cheap out: it's not expensive.

Now I'm wrapping with about four feet of wire in total. I'd started in the middle, but with only four feet of wire I wouldn't really need to do. She gives very clear instructions on how to seamlessly incorporate new wrapping wires into the weave.

I have no idea what I'm actually going to do with this other than wrap a pendant, but I want to add some hammered twiddled paddles at the ends, so I did cut the base wires extra-long and will use this as a play piece.

Thanks again to Pearl at Beading Gem for turning me (and a lot of other people) onto Sarah's video and book.

Thanks for looking!

Wire-Weaving Course by Sarah Thompson...

Wire-weaving is my latest passion in my ever-evolving style and this particular combination of thick and thin hammering, exquisitely symmetrical and layered wire-bending...

...combined with wrapping revs the machine-like precision-monster in me like nothing else. I just now bought Sarah Thompson's 3-hour video course via Pearl Blay's Beading Gem blog and I cannot wait to start working my way through this tut.

Go to Pearl's blog, make a comment and enter the draw to win the free video tutorial. For me, I'm too impatient (and not reeeeally very lucky) so I clicked the link on Pearl's blog and -- whoo hoo! -- bought the course for half price at Craftsy. I'm currently mulling over buying Sarah's book... but I probably will.

Thanks for looking!