How to Knit With Wire Kits for Jewelry
Knitting and jewelry-making are popular crafts, so it's only natural for skilled knitters and art jewelers to combine the two skills to produce jewelry and garments. Knitted wire jewelry is sculptural, elegant and organic, while knitted wire clothing is sculptural, elegant and often very modern. An easy way to get started is to use a kit for knitted wire jewelry, which provides a pattern, beads and findings, and suitable wire for knitting all in one convenient package. If you've never knit before, practice using a forgiving material like wool before knitting with wire since wire is intolerant of mistakes.
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Things You'll Need
- Wire jewelry kit
- Knitting needles of size recommended in the kit
- Pliers or scissors
Instructions
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Read the pattern that comes with your kit. Knitting patterns vary widely. Some designers will tell you exactly how to cast on for a particular pattern, while others will assume you know the best technique for that pattern or your particular style of knitting. Knitting with wire is sufficiently different from knitting with yarn that designers of patterns to be knit with wire tend be very specific about what techniques they think you should use.
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Swatch, or make a practice square. This is particularly important if you've always knit with large needles and your pattern calls for very small needles. You'll be tempted to hold your needles and the wire in a death grip and knit the wire at the very tips of the needles. Instead, relax your hands and hold the wire loosely. A gauge swatch will also help you determine what needles to use. If you want to knit your wire jewelry more densely than the gauge swatch, use smaller needles. If you want your jewelry airier and more delicate, use larger needles.
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String your beads onto the wire before you start knitting the pattern itself. Count your beads to make sure you have the right number, then add a few more for safety's sake. Once you begin knitting, you won't be able to add any more to beads to your wire. Avoid the common technique of placing a bead into knitting by sliding the bead onto a slender crochet hook, using the hook to pull the knit stitch through the bead, then placing the stitch back on the left needle prior to knitting it onto the right. It stresses the wire too much, increasing the chances that it will break.
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Allow your spool or cone of wire to roll freely. Wire is not yarn. As you work with wire, it hardens and becomes brittle. If it becomes too brittle, it breaks. If you knit wire off a vertical spool or cone, you will literally twist it until it kinks, then breaks. Prevent this by allowing your spool or cone of yarn to roll freely.
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Contain that spool or cone of wire or it will turn into a tangled mess. Designer Rosemary Hill suggests placing each spool of wire in its own small resealable baggie, then knitting by pulling the working end of the wire out through the open top of the baggie. But that solution can still create excessive twist, which leads to broken wire. A better solution is to place the cone or spool into the baggie, poke a hole through the baggie with the working end of the wire, slide the wire through, and seal the baggie around the cone.
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Hill also suggests blocking, or stretching into shape, your piece of jewelry as you go. However, it is possible to block your wire piece after it is finished, even if it is complex and traditional lace knitting, so if you forget to block until you have finished your piece, don't despair. Just take your time and be gentle with the metal.
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Tips & Warnings
You may find a magnification device such as reading glasses helpful, especially if you choose to use metal needles similar in color to your wire.
Bamboo needles tend to hold the wire better than do metal needles.
