Crocheted Wire and its Many Possibilities

My latest passion is making jewelry with crocheted wire. The possibilities, given the different gauges and colors of wire available, are endless, especially if you combine them with different beads or stones. My favorite colors to work right now are blue and aqua. Here is an example of what happens when you use a bead soup of Indian glass beads and combine them with three strands of fine gauge silver plated wire.


It is really fun to experiment with different gauges of wire, since you never know how a piece is going to turn out. Generally, I use very fine gauge wire 30) with swarovski crystals, pearls and semi precious stones, 208 gauge with beads like the ones above, and thicker gauge wire (26) with chunkier stones. Anything thicker than 26 gauge and my fingers can really feel it!

Here is an example of work with very fine gauge wire and smaller stones, using black instead of silver wire. The beads I used here are rose and strawberry quartzes, jade, pearls, and moonstone. Very different look, no?


Here is an example using gold plated wire and autumn colors, for a very elegant and sophisticated look. I used bronze and pink pearls, seed beads and crystals and made a matching set of earrings as well.


Finally, here is what a chunky piece using vintage jet beads and red accents comes out looking like. This piece was braided at the ends, so that the focus is on the red and black in the middle. Hope this gives you an idea of the extensive possibilities of crocheting with wire!




Most of these pieces can be found on my Etsy store at www.penelopedesign.etsy.com

My First Tutorial: Wired Beaded Hair Thingies!

Well, since my creative urge came back today with a bit of sun in the afternoon, I figured I would dive right in and try a tutorial. I have been on the look out on line for instructions for some fun summer hair thingies that would involve beads, but they are few and far between. I did find something I liked on jewelrymaking.about.com, but have decided to adapt it a bit, since the directions weren't the greatest, as I started trying to make it. Also, I don't know about the rest of you, but I am a very visual learner, and need a lot of pictures to go with what I am doing, so there will be lots of photos with each instruction. This is something that even the most basic beader can make, with just a few tools, so enjoy!

Items needed:
Thick elastic ponytail holder (I like Scuncis)

An assortment of seed beads in your favorite colors (I used size 11 in these pics, but I'm sure you can use any size you like). I like to mix them up in a shallow bowl.

Craft wire (22-24 gauge is good)








Knitting needles of various sizes, or pencils


Round nose pliers
Wire cutters

1. First cut the wire into 3 equal lengths of 8 inches. The original tutorial called for 6 inches, but I found this too meager.

2. Put your assortment of beads into a little bowl or on a beading mat.
(see photo above!)

3. Curl the end of each wire with your round nose pliers so the beads don't fall off!
4. String the beads in random order onto each wire, leaving about 1.5 inches at each end.


5. When you are done stringing, curl each end with your round nose pliers.

6. Then make each wire into a U shape, and push the beads towards each end, leaving a space in the middle.

7. Take all three wires and twist them together.

So they end up looking like this -

8. Take the Scuncii and carefully twist the trio of wires around it.

9. Take each wire and coil it around a knitting needle, pencil or dowel. On some of these, I used a variety of different sizes of needles, and on others, I used all the same size. The coils should go in a bunch of different directions, depending on your inclination.

10. That's it, you're done! Now wasn't that easy?

This is how it looks with a different colorway of beads. These make great end of the year teacher gifts, by the way!

Please send me any comments, photos of your work, etc. I would love to see different takes on this!