1st Post of 2022 – New Year, New Skills, New You!

Happy New Year! I hope you had a restful festive period and are ready to start a new year full of jewellery making with me! I had an unusual Christmas this year. It was just the four of us on Christmas Day, which is unheard of in my family! We usually have a house full of people throughout the festive period. But I’ll admit, it was a nice change and the breather that we needed. Anyway, enough rest! It’s 2022 and I’m ready to learn some new skills!

My nearest and dearest all seem to know that I’m a bit jewellery obsessed at the moment. Therefore, it’s no surprise that I received a lot of gifts themed around jewellery and jewellery making. One such gift was from my sister:

Yes, it’s a Kumihimo book! This one is by the fantastic Christina Larsen. Do check out her YouTube channel for some tutorials, you won’t regret it! I’m not affiliated, I just love following her tutorials!

New Skills Time!

I’m always looking for new techniques to give my jewellery a different look. Kumihimo is a Japanese art form, used to make braids and cords. I came across the concept last year, back when I started wire wrapping. Just Google it! You’ll find some stunning examples. I love all things crafty. Most evenings, I have some knitting or crochet on the go. So Kumihimo seems like a good way to kick off 2022!

Of course, I didn’t get any Kumihimo boards as part of my present, so I had to rush out and buy some. The set in the photo was relatively inexpensive from Amazon at £5.49 earlier this month. I’ll be honest, I was really surprised the board was made of foam. I don’t quite know what I was expecting, but I imagine if you’re doing this a lot, the foam board might need replacing on a regular basis?

I’ve never done this before, so I decided to use a random roll of wire (I think it was stainless steel?!) that I had at home, rather than buy more supplies… One thing I learnt last year was that you can get sucked into a never-ending shopping loop (or at least, I can!). Rather than work on a project straight off, I decided to learn the first braid in the book – the diagonal Kumihimo structure.

Getting Started

Following the instructions in the book, I cut eight lengths of wire, each 30cm long. I figured that was long enough to get some practice in, but also short enough that I shouldn’t have too many problems with wire kinks and work hardening. So, here’s my initial set-up:

Trust me… It didn’t stay that neat all the way through! Trying to get the wires to stay in the slots is a job in itself!

Anyway, I won’t reproduce the instructions from the book, but I’d say, if you know a bit of knitting / crochet / weaving, this is not too big a jump. However, wire behaves differently from wool! It doesn’t stretch, and you’ve got to press each of the wires as close to the previous wires as you can, in order to get a tight weave. So, there is definitely a learning curve there.

An Hour (or so) Later

After about an hour or so, I managed to produce a 12cm length of braid. Hurrah!

My beginning attempts are at the bottom – you can see that I didn’t know how to press the wires together and get them to sit tightly together. However, it got better with practice and you can see the improvement over the braid. So, keep persevering! You’ll get there!

If you’re trying this out for the first time, I would not recommend the stainless steel wire that I used! It was really hard going on the fingers – it’s much harder than copper wire, so harder to manipulate. In fact, I made this braid yesterday and my hands are still hurting as I type! I’m hoping that using a softer wire will help to tighten the weave up, as I don’t particularly like the gaps in the braid… but I suspect that’s a personal preference.

So far, the Kumihimo Wirework Made Easy book has been easy to follow, with clear instructions and tips on managing the wire. The book supports a lot of the instructions with step-by-step photos, which makes it easy to stop and check if you’re in the right place. I’ll share more as I work through some of the projects!

That’s All For Now

I really enjoyed learning how to make this braid and am now looking forward to doing a full on project. And yes, I did go out and buy some more copper wire in the right gauges, as well as some findings to finish the ends. Once I’ve done a couple of projects out of the book, I might have a go at designing my own pieces! I’m so excited to add some new looks to my work!

So that’s the first new skill of the year! Tell me, what are your plans for 2022? Have you made a new year’s resolution? Share with me in the comments!

Also, don’t forget to sub to my blog and YouTube channel to follow my adventures in jewellery making – I have lots planned this year, with plans to experiment in enamelling, more silver clay and definitely, more silversmithing. My first few projects will be aimed at children as I’m helping my daughter’s Brownies group achieve their jewellers badge! So thanks for joining me and stay tuned!