TwistedLoops

After seeing a knitted wire necklace at the World Wide Knit in Public day, I decided that I needed to try working with wire. This isn’t the first time that I’ve mentioned an interest in it.

I headed out to one of the major chain craft stores and purchased some enameled copper wire and a purple bead assortment. Once I got home, I opened up the packages for my new goodies right away.

Three hours later, the bead stringing and fixing a wire tangling disaster were complete and I was ready to begin my work. It went pretty quickly. It took me about an hour to crochet a bangle sized bracelet to slip over my hand and arm. I’m pleased with how it turned out.

It has me hooked. I discovered that I can hit the local craft store, the local bead store, and the two chain crafting stores on my drive home from work by going only .5 miles out of my way. This is a very dangerous (to my bank account) drive home.

I’ve made a second bracelet in browns and ambers that I’m having a terrible time photographing, and I’ve purchased beads to make a chartreuse colored bracelet. There will definitely be more of these in my future.

It’s been a while since I featured things from the web that I think should be shared, so I’ll provide a few links today.

Since my early days of knitting, some four years ago, I was interested in different applications of knitting.  I’ve always wanted to attempt knitting or crocheting jewelry with wire and beads.  I even have wire in a few different gauges in the stash.  (Hmmm…wonder if there is a way to track that in Ravelry? )  Yet, somehow I’ve never attempted to use it.  I think that I fear having my finished item not look like it does in my head, a beautiful, beaded piece of jewelry to wear.

While searching Etsy the other day, I decided to take a look and see what was available in knitted or crocheted jewelry.  There’s quite a lot of options available there.  The quality of the items seems to vary, but I found three pieces I really love.  If I thought that my adventures with wire and beads would end up anything like the three necklaces I feature here, I’d jump right in and be happy with the results.

First up is the Portland Necklace from Etsy seller LazyCat.  I really like the large, bauble-like glass pearls on this necklace.

The Elegant Necklace for Evening from seller Lanita is lovely.  The necklace aims to be a bit dressier than I usually am in my everyday life, but I think that it could work with a casual outfit too.

Finally, the Purple Seed Beads Necklace from seller Gulcheck reminds me a lot of necklaces I purchased the last time I was in Paris.  They did not have as many strands as this, but the style was similar.  She had this style in a lot of colors that I enjoyed; it was hard to pick a favorite.  Perhaps I was just in a bit of a purple mood, since all the necklaces I listed feature purple tones.  The only drawback with this necklace is a lack of photos featuring this style necklace being worn.  It’s hard to get a sense of scale for how large those strands end up being.