Читать книгу Wire-Wrapped Jewelry Techniques - Lora S. Irish - Страница 7

Bent-wire jewelry links are all the rage in today’s necklace and bracelet designs. A little wire, a few simple tools, and some brightly colored beads are all you need to start creating your own fashion statements. By adding new wires to basic links with a technique called wire wrapping, you can alter simple links into complex, intriguing, and fascinating focal designs. Wire wrapping is a quick and easy technique to master that will take your jewelry craft to the next level. Throughout this book, some experience in jewelry craft and basic bent-wire link skills on the part of the reader are assumed. There are many excellent books and Internet tutorials available to beginning jewelry crafters that will give a new hobbyist a strong foundation in the basic skills.

In this book, you’ll learn how to:

• Add texture using tightly packed wire-wrapped coils

• Add a grunge look using random, loosely packed twists and turns

• Add bead clusters anywhere on a bent-wire link

• Secure free-floating arms or anchor open hoops in a bent-wire link

• Experiment with wire-wrapped coils and beaded wires

• Create woven patterns, working a wrapping wire through several arms of a bent-wire link

• Create connecting loops on bent-wire links to add side chains

• And more!

What Is a Bent-Wire Link?

Quite simply, a bent-wire link, or simply a link, is a kind of jewelry-making “unit” that is made by manipulating wire into a specific shape or design. A link can be simple or complex, large or small. The idea of this book is to learn how to create links that you then decorate with wire wrapping and incorporate as elements of finished jewelry. The bent-wire link itself is the basic unit before any wrapping is added.