RingBling/WireGenius - Making Chainmaille/Jump Ring + Wire Sculpture Jewelry

Here's the first pattern out of my sketchbook. As I said in the last post, I have a number of recent pendant and brooch jewelry designs that were influenced by a wire-working book published in 1917. The original version of the sketch above was a bit more detailed, but I'm using a new sketch tablet and I couldn't quite get the hang of it. But choose the right materials, especially for the beads, and you'll have a lovely heart-shaped pendant.

As I haven't actually made the above item, I can't give you exact details. However, I'm suggesting the following materials (get extra, just in case):

1. Carnelian beads with a hole drilled through two sides. Don't go by the number in the diagram above. You may need more if you're using small beads.
2. 6 jump-rings of about 6-8 mm. These are the visible circles above.
3. 8 jump-rings of about 3-4 mm. These are the double vertical lines joining the large jump-rings.
4. Thick silver wire or silver-plated wire, probably 12, 14 or 16 gauge. This wire forms the skeleton of the heart shape and must be able to hold its shape.
5. Two long strands of thin silver or silver-plated wire, plus a few bits for the two dangling beads at the bottom of the pendant. You might actually need a long head pin to attach the bottom two beads to the bottom vertex of the heart shape. Experiment to be sure.
6. You will either need wire or chain to attach to either side of the topmost large jump-ring.

Start by forming a symmetric heart-shaped skeleton with the thick gauge wire and twist together at the top - but do something attractive to the top, or wind it onto the top of the 4th large jump-ring from the top. I think you can figure out how to attach the jump-rings. The first piece of thin wire will string all of the carnelian beads together, and will attach to the third jump-ring from the top, as well as the heart skeleton. The second piece of thin wire will be wound around the skeleton but over the thin wire between each bead. This will hold the beads in place. My guess is that unless you're an experienced designer, you may need to try a couple of times before you get this pendant. But I do know enough about wirework to know that the above pendant can be made. Just make sure you have enough thin gauge wire.

Feel free to use this pattern. If you reprint the pattern and/or the instructions, please give me credit.

(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://ringbling.blogspot.com

Technorati : chainmail, chainmaille, heart-shaped pendant, jump-ring, pendant, wire work