Hello, again! Here’s my latest wire jewellery project for you, all!
Last Sunday, I was at a loose end. My children were occupying themselves with games and toys, and my husband was playing video games. So I decided to attempt the Five-Bead Ring project from “Wire Jewelry Masterclass” by Abby Hook.
A Quick Project Squeezed in Before Training…
I thought it would be a quick project that I could fit in before Taekwondo training. Who knows what I was thinking?! I really thought I’d be done in about 2 hours. I was completely wrong… it took me 4 hours! Oops! I did manage (just about) to finish it before training. But I’m pretty sure that was because I rushed the end! Anyhow, after 4 hours, this is what I made:
Overall, I’m pretty pleased with the outcome, even though it already needs a bit of repair… I learnt a lot about the process, like how I really should figure out how to measure the ring size correctly… This ring was quite challenging to make – there is a reason why it’s under the Intermediate Project section of the book. I should probably stop jumping around the book!
The Materials
For this ring, I used a 1mm (18-gauge) copper wire for the frame and a 0.3mm (28-gauge) copper wire to weave the beads in. The two white-ish beads are 3mm blue lace agate, the two dark blue beads are 4mm lapis lazuli and the central bead is a 6mm white agate (you may recognise these from my Unboxing post) – I think the colours work quite well together and I’m glad I chose them.
Making the Frame
The ring frame is made first by wrapping the 1mm copper wire around a ring mandrel. This is where I made a mistake, and I just could not recover from it later on. The book instructions say that the finished ring will be 5 sizes smaller than you start with due to the side coils and the beads. To accommodate this, you make the ring 5 sizes bigger than the size you need. So I followed all of this… I thought perfectly… It turns out that you have to wrap that wire around the mandrel very, very tightly to get the 5 size reduction! Mine only went down about 2 sizes by the end… Be warned!
If you look closely, you can see that my ring is a little bent at the bottom. I guess that comes with practice – I still haven’t figured out how to make the wire perfectly straight before I start! This is my fourth project from this book!
Making the ring shank is not too difficult, if you manage to get the wire wrapped tightly around the mandrel.
Weaving the Beads
The challenge is in weaving the beads… wow… 2 hours turned into 4 hours, as I mentioned earlier! Once the frame is made, you need to attach the 3mm wire to the open part of the ring shank and then start to coil over one of the wires until you reach the other end. Then you start coming back the other way, until you reach the position of the first bead and attach the first bead. You carry on in the same way until you’ve attached all five beads. It sounds simple enough, right?! Wrong! Take a look at just a few of the problems I encountered:
Just take a look at the kinks! 
So many snapped wires!
So Many Wire Kinks…
The only way I could figure out how to weave the wire in the gap between the two wires was to poke it in like a sewing needle. But every time I did, the wire would curl and twist, resulting in the kinks you can see on the lefthand photo. I’d seen a YouTube video which suggested you could massage those kinks out by rubbing your thumbnail over it… but I think my wire was too far gone.
So, after all the kinks and my not-very-gentle tugging on the wire to try and secure the beads on tightly, I ended up snapping the wire. More. Than. Once.
It was very stressful as I haven’t really figured out how to attach a wire back on and carry on seamlessly yet. I did my best, and hopefully it wasn’t too noticeable. I even took my pliers and gave the ends a squeeze to try and hide the end and make it secure, and stop it scratching people… all that good stuff that the tutorials suggest… But, clearly, I didn’t do that particularly well, because after a day, not only is my ring too big for my finger, I can see the wire ends are starting to come off. Oh well, you live and learn.
Possible Solution to Manage the Wire
Since attempting this ring, I’ve asked around on a few forums for help. It’s been suggested to me that I wind my 0.3mm wire onto a kumihimo bobbin first as that will help with the tension. I don’t think I explained very well that the frame that I’m trying to weave into is sealed at both ends. The bobbin isn’t going to help in this instance… That said, I tried a cotton reel and a bit of masking tape as a makeshift bobbin for a project with open wire ends, and it worked!
I also watched a few more videos for help. I think the correct technique for weaving in closed frame like this is to push the wire through from the attached end, like a loop, rather than from the tail end like a sewing needle. Then you use a finger to pull the loop through gently. I’ve tried this on another project now and I think you can really see the difference in the wire wrapping. Have a look:
I still had a few problems at the end of the weave (the right hand side, where you can see a kink – this was the point where I switched back to trying to poke the end of the wire through because I couldn’t fit my finger in anymore!), but on the whole it’s neater and there were no moments where I thought “this wire is going to break”!
Enough Digression…
Anyway, I digress, once all the beads are secure, you finish off the weave to the end of the frame and you end up with a finished ring, which I think is quite pretty and wearable (if you make it the right size!):
I will be giving this one another go to see if I can get a better quality finish!
[…] I made a quick ring (I thought it would be quick… it really wasn’t – full post here). I think the colours do work quite well together. What do you […]