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 beg...
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 pai...
Sometimes design just evolves. I wanted to make a toggle set from polymer for a knitted green chain I made. I started with Premo green, purple, light green, and translucent clay. I was thinking: floral - wild violets http://www.garden.org/weedlibrary/?q=show&id=2397 green leaves tiny formed flowers green and purple I also had decorative copper head pins and I wondered if I could incorporate those and make them connect the toggle set to the chain. I played with the circle and the cut out for the toggle. As you can see I ended up with tiny purple flowers raised on translucent circles laying on green leaves. And they reminded me of wild violets. The toggle needed to be another leaf with a violet that fit onto the round leaf. After getting the width and length of the leaf correct, I added the decorative head pin and bent it to a circle. I placed a tiny purple ball of polymer on top of the head and cured...
Happy New Year Linda - thank you for a wonderful year of blog posts. I love the picture!
ReplyDelete