Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Artful Gathering http://artfulgatheringfest.ning.com has some great classes and some of you know I am taking Keith lo Bue’s class.   http://artfulgatheringfest.ning.com/group/steeling-beauty-with-keith-lo-bue   I guess I needed a short break from my polymer clay so yesterday and today I made the ‘s’ link chain and continued to make it into a necklace.   My beautiful Crazy Lace bead gives a nice contrast to the wire and will lay asymmetrical on the chain.   The chain is long enough to fit over my head but if I needed to take it apart I can.   The jump ring at the stone slips past the partial ‘s’ component that is glued into the bead hole.   I still need to work on making better jump rings that come together exactly.    Lots of my new knowledge will transfer to my techniques of using brass, silver and copper wire for my jewelry pieces.   That’s what is so great about taking an online class!   I can watch the video until I really ‘get it’ and then experiment with the knowl

 Bead-It (Prescott AZ) and I are offering a class to make a viking knit bracelet in March.   I took the class example in to the bead store and in the process came home with two new (to me) tools to experiment with - a Knitting Spool and a Wyr Knittr. I wanted to know how the chain looked using these techniques compared to the Viking knit and how the processes differed.  Viking Knit Example  Check my post on viking knit to see that technique. http://lindabrittdesign.blogspot.com/2011/10/learning-as-we-go.html  I started with the Knitting Spool – a wooden spool about 3” tall and 1 ½” wide with a hole through the middle.   There are 5 cotter pins on the top and the wire is wound around the pins in one of 2 patterns.   A pick helps put the lower wire over the upper wire at each cotter pin for each row.   The knitted tube is funneled through the center hole and comes out the bottom.       Knitter Spool Example  I think it took me a couple of tries