Linda's Magic Workshop - Linda Britt Design

Some of you may have noticed I skipped last week's blogs.   Sometimes I just don’t know what part of my days I want to write about and sometimes I just can’t focus on writing.   If you have been following my posts, you know that my love, Peter, has two benign (the joy of hearing that word) growths on salivary glands.    One of the glands decided to cause a problem.   We ended up going to Tucson to the University Medical Center and having the surgeon, Dr. Gernon, look at the problem.   Peter was admitted to the hospital with a staph infection.   It is cleared up now and surgery will be in June. While Peter was in the hospital, I made Viking Knit chain by his bedside.   As you can see, I was there quite a while!   But I’ve wanted to try combining wires for a striped or segmented effect.   I used copper, brass and steel wire. It was interesting to work with 3 metals of the same gauge and see the differences.   The steel was definitely the harder and the brass was the easiest to w

When I used to design homes, I knew what they would look like in my mind.   And I always sighed gratefully and with relief when the homes were finished and they really did look like what I imagined.   It is the same with my jewelry.  Viking Knit with pearls  The beautiful crystal prism that I saved (who knows why) from some chandelier years ago would become my focal. When I added pearls to viking knit just to see what it looked like, I had no idea where I would use it (see post http://lindabrittdesign.blogspot.com/search?q=viking+knit+and+pearls). As I sat at my workbench with my pencil, paper and parts, this design took shape.   I realized I did not have enough pearls and knew the Tucson Gem Show was coming up.   I drew the design and put the parts (prism and viking knit with pearls) in a box.    I could get pearls the right color and size to finish my recycled prism necklace. Some major health issues popped up in our house and I had to cancel the Tucson trip.   A couple

 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

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