Woven Wire Jewelry

Hello everyone, I'm getting ready for this term's class at Pittsburgh Center for the Arts, and I wanted to post about this great area of wire jewelry making. You can see more photos of my woven wire at http://www.flickr.com/photos/adinasartistry/

Woven wire!! Totally an addicting craft. What you'll need for this class, or any try at wire weaving are: a Quick Grip clamp, available at more hardware store, pliers, including a nylon jaw plier, good wire cutters, masking tape, a ruler and time!!

The metal we will be using is 6 feet of 22 gauge round, dead soft wire, 18inches of 14 gauge, round dead soft wire, and 2 feet of 16 gauge half round wire for bindings. This will make a woven wire bracelet that is very modern and can be easily worn by both men and women.

For the fancy Cuff, pictured above, you will also need 14G, but you will want to buy 24, 26, 24twist 18 & 20. So basically all the wire you can find go into that bugger! Not to mention beads and what not. It's hard to see the weaving in this picture, but it's what holds the entire thing together up the sides. The more you add, and more you do to these pieces, the better and better they get.

I don't usually post or recommend books for students to buy unless they ask, but in this case, the book on Woven Wire Jewelry by Linda Chandler and Christine R. Ritchey is so well written, detailed and easy to use, I suggest people buy it prior to class. You can also visit the website http://christineritcheyjewelry.com/ for more.

Also, we will be using a little metal clay in this class! It's a great thing to combine with woven wire, and I use Art Clay 650, slow dry with my pieces, but we'll discuss more of that the first class.

I hope I see you there, and that you're all staying cool this summer!

Adina