Sometimes You Just Have to Try It!


Trying something new!  I was in Joann’s recently and was looking for a Nifty Knitter to see if I could make chain with it.  There were several sizes of round plastic disc with a series of knobs or spokes to wrap yarn around.  The smallest one was 4” in diameter and while I wanted something to make a larger diameter chain I thought 4” might be a little large.  Then I saw the specialty knitter.  Check out that picture!
Nifty Knitter Specialty Loom
Several posts ago, I compared a spool knitter with another product and now I have to share this one! http://www.lindabrittdesign.blogspot.com/2012/02/adventure-of-making-chain.html  I made my purchase and went home to try different gauge wire with it. I found the technique for the Nifty Knitter’s to be very similar to the Spool Knitter.  Using the small end for knitting lets the knitted wire pull through the center hole with no problem – just like the wooden Spool Knitter did. This plastic one was a little easier to hold.  It went so well, I made this necklace and put the knitted chain through a draw plate.  This evened out the knitting some and made it a little more durable.  There are two strands of magenta silk cord threaded through the chain and the shell drop is attached to the cord.  That gives the necklace a nice organic look I think. 
26 gauge wire knitted on the Nifty Knitter
I wanted to see how thick a gauge wire I could use and found that a 22 is good.  Here’s the chain in 22 that I also pulled through a drawplate.
22 gauge wire knitted on Nifty Knitter and pulled through a drawplate
And then I decided to knit on the larger end….the knitting went well until I tried to pull the knitted wire through the center hole.  The knitted wire feeds through the center allowing you to make the chain any length.  If you look at the Nifty Knitter you will see the large end going to the small end with a neck in the middle.  The larger diameter knitting would not pull through the ‘neck’ and I ended up taking the knobs or spokes out and removing the knitted wire from the top.  As you can see, I have a blue chili pepper or something I don’t want to discuss!  Any ideas on how to use this creation?   I really just had to share this experience. 
Blue Chili?  22 gauge wire - 5" long!


Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Learning As We Go!

Image
Viking knit is the oldest method of chain making and I've become fascinated by it.  Once I conquered the single knit, I decided to add beads.  I could have googled or asked how it was done but it seemed like something I could just figure out.  And I've learned a lot as I proceeded first with tumbled turquoise beads and then with pearls.  I thought I'd share a few of the things I've learned.   Iif you want a great tutorial on viking knit technique, Trina Ann at http://blog.trinaann.com/  has written a clear concise easy to understand tutorial.  I highly recommend it.    Tumbled tuquoise beads in viking knit  I used tumbled turquoise beads in the first viking knit chain and I did not really know what I was doing.  But I went right ahead and as it turned out, I liked the end result.  Since the beads were irregular in shape there was a random quality to the finished product. During that process, I began to really understand the technique of viking knit.  Loo
Read more

Spring Do-Over Challenge

Image
Re-do of Original Pieces Plus My Art Beads  I’m hooked!  The Do-Over Challenge that Jeannie Dukic ‘JKD Studio’ www.jkdjewelry.com offers has become something I look forward to.  Jeannie sends pieces of her ‘old’ jewelry to those of us who sign up and we get to create something new from them.  It does not matter if we like the piece she sends because we take it apart, add beads from our stash and create a completely new piece.  It’s a great way to recycle. Original Necklace and earrings When I received my piece to re-create, it lay on my bead try for a while as I sorted through the possibilities.  There were 3 art beads that might work but only one yelled, “Me!  Take me!”  Fortunately I had more of the polymer cane that was used for that bead because I wanted smaller one to go with the big chosen art bead.  The green chips were to be filler beads highlighting my art beads.  Large 'Take Me!' bead! I made two pair of earrings.  One pair could be part of
Read more

The Draw of the Mojave Desert or Why I Started Designing Jewelry

Image
When you look at my etsy stores you see Mojave Stone jewelry .  In the 1970's, my father and two brothers mined a stone in the Mojave Desert in the middle of nowhere California!  Actually, the mine was somewhat but not very close to Desert Center.  It had been a gold/silver mine before they staked their claim and began mining stone.  My family lived in Missouri and the stone had to be trucked from the desert after strip mining it.  I was married and away from home so I got to hear the stories of making a road, fighting off bees, surviving the heat, being careful of the critters and all the other 'Wild West' excitement.  And I did not have to rough it! Dad was going to retire (some day) and make and sell the polished cabochons (a stone cut and polished usually with a flat back and a convex top) for jewelry.  In the meantime, he had some distributors sell it, some metal smiths create pieces, and he trademarked it as 'Mojave Royal Blue' and 'Mojave Stone'.  He
Read more