How to Knit Wire for Jewelry

Knitting with wire expands the knitting enthusiasts' horizons to fashion jewelry. While the knitting projects won't keep you warm, you'll be in high fashion. As you learn to work with the wire, you can add beads and jewels to make your jewelry unique, and you can even expand to knitting handbags, belts and other accessories.

Difficulty: Moderate

Instructions

1. Choose your wire. It comes in a variety of colors and sizes; however, 28-gauge and higher is the best for kitting.

2. Select your knitting needles. Since the wire will scratch your wooden and plastic needles, you could use metal. However, metal may scratch the wire or make a sound you can't stand. Wire is much less flexible than yarn, so the stiffness may be harder on your hands and tools, therefore, the tools you choose need to be designated to your wire knitting exclusively.

3. Block as you go. You need to pull the row long-ways to see the definition of the stitches.

4. Knit slowly and deliberately. Wire is much less forgiving than yarn. Ripping stitches is a challenge since the wire will kink after it's knitted. It can also break if it's reworked too much.

5. Bind off as you would with yarn. But if you need more stability or a neater edge, you can add a slip-stitch edge.

Tips & Warnings

• Use matte wire. The mistakes are less noticeable.
• You can also crochet wire.