hope of spring=craftiness?

I’m not sure what it is–maybe the slightly warmer days and the sun shining a little bit longer each evening–but I’ve been in super-crafty mode for a while. Today, I decided to get back to my knitting, since I haven’t done anything with yarn for a really long time. Of course, I needed a super cool pattern to get me back into the craft, and I found it: Space Invaders socks. The pattern is hosted on knitty.com, a site that I highly recommend you check out if you’re not familiar with it already.

So I went out today and bought my wool yarn–black, white, and green–and my circular knitting needles. I’ve used DPNs before, but never circulars. After casting on my 92 stitches, I was jumping to go at starting the corrugated rib at the cuff of the sock, only to realize that my needles are too long.

I bought 16-inch needles. I need 12-inch needles.

I knew that this project would be mentally taxing, but I wasn’t expecting to run into a wall this early. I’m planning to post the whole adventure on  my blog here. Just as soon as I get the right needles, of course.

Not dead yet! Also, a tutorial.

So, I’ve been meaning to post this tutorial for weeks now, but you know how it goes–finals are approaching, I’ve got thesis work to do, and Thanksgiving kind of came and went and I still have leftover turkey in the fridge. Finally, though, I’m getting it together again, and so I present to you a tutorial: how to make your own ear wires.

This one goes back to my mantra of “never buy it if you can make it”–and you can make ear wires so easily. Honestly, even if you’ve never done this before, it won’t take you more than five or six minutes to make your first pair, and it just gets easier from there on.

You’re going to need a lot of the regular tools–round nose pliers, chain nose pliers, and wire cutters.

You’re also going to need two 2-inch pieces of 20-gauge wire–the type is up to you. I’m using copper in the picture, but if you’ve got sensitive ears you’ll want to end up making your ear wires in sterling silver or gold. I’d advise starting out with a cheaper base metal if you’ve never done this before, though–the learning curve isn’t too steep, but I never like to practice a new technique with expensive wire. Also, make sure that you get 20-gauge wire–22 gauge is a little too flimsy, and while some jewelry makers swear by 18-gauge, it’s too thick for my own earlobes.

As for the rest of your tools, you’re going to need an anvil or bench block (we used this in the hammered hook tutorial), a wire rounder or metal files, and a Sharpie. Trust me on the Sharpie.

And your very last tool–a piece of clear tape. This is the secret to making matching ear wires: you have to make them both at the same time. The easiest way to make them both at the same time is, for me, to just tape them together, making sure that the edges of each wire are flush against each other. As you make more ear wires, you’ll probably find that you don’t need to use the tape–you get a feel for the process as you go along. In the beginning, though, it’s a big helper towards making identical wires.

With the wires taped together, place your round nose pliers at the edge of the wires. You don’t want to make a tiny loop–this is going to be the loop that you’ll open in order to add your actual earring piece. Place the wires about a quarter of an inch down the shaft of the round nose pliers. Holding the wires firmly in your left hand, curl your right hand over and to the left to create a loop (reverse the process if you are left-handed).

After you’ve made your loop, put down the round nose pliers and grab your Sharpie–or, okay, your similarly sized marker. Hold the wires in your right hand, placing your thumb directly behind the loops you just made, and press the wires onto the Sharpie. Use your left hand to curl the back ends of the wires around the marker, forming a loop.

The ends of the wires should cross, like an X. Pull the wire off of the marker.

Success! We’re almost done–just a few more steps left to clean the wires up. It’s time to use our chain nose pliers.

Grip the un-looped part of the ear wires parallel to the small loops you made. We’re going to turn the wire out and to the back, creating a small dent in the curved back part of the ear wire.

See? Afterwards, trim the wires so that they’re flush with each other and not exceedingly long–you can eyeball this part. At this point, we’ve done everything we can with the wires taped together. Time to separate the ear wires and get ready to use your chain nose pliers again.

Right now, the loops at the front of our ear wires aren’t in line with the rest of the finding–they’re perpendicular. Use your chain nose pliers to give those loops a little twist to make the piece one straight line.

The raw finished piece–now it’s time to do a little polishing.

This is the wire rounder, and it’s one of my favorite tools. If you haven’t already invested in a set of metal files, and you’re planning on making quite a few ear wires, I highly recommend it. The tool has a long wooden shaft for you to hold, and a cup at the top. Inside the cup are burrs. All you have to do is hold the tool in one hand and your ear wire in the other. Put the back edge of the wire–the part that will go through your ear–into the rounder’s cup, and twist the tool around the wire. I like to hold the wire in my left hand and use my right hand to manipulate the tool. Essentially, the tool will file down the back edge of the wire and round it off. You can feel it working; it grinds for a while until the wire is smooth. You need to put a little muscle into the tool, but it’s by no means difficult to use, and takes less time for me to use than if I used metal files.

Confused? Picture using a screw driver, but instead of going in complete circles, you’re going back and forth, back and forth.

Now we’re just going to hammer a bit (with a ball peen or chasing hammer–I believe that I left that out earlier, oops). Lightly tap all around the ear wire–we don’t want to flatten the metal too much around the back of the ear wire, as you could make it too wide to fit in the earlobe. I like to lightly hammer all around the piece, and then give it a few more solid taps closer to the front loops.

And you’ve made your very own ear wires! To use them, simply take your chain nose pliers and open the front loops as you would a simple loop, and slide on your dangle. Voila!

And now, you’re probably wondering–why a Sharpie? Well, I like to have a handy tool that’ll give me loops exactly the same size, every time. You could use a large wooden dowel, or a ring mandrel instead. I just like the size of the Sharpie.

Happy crafting! Feel free to comment here if you’ve got any questions.

Okay, so I’m addicted…

…to small glass bottles. I just can’t stop making pendants out of them–tonight’s newest Etsy listing is a glass bottle pendant filled with watch parts, and aptly named “Time in a Bottle.”

I’m definitely adding a new tutorial this week, likely tomorrow, on making simple earloops. But would anyone be interested in a tutorial on how to attach a wire bail to these tiny bottles?

Happened because he wanted.

Odds are, you don’t read poetry.

Or at least, you don’t read modern poetry–maybe, like me, you like Whitman, or maybe you don’t know who Whitman is. Maybe your last contact with poetry was your high school English teacher forcing Shakespeare’s sonnets on you.

As a poet, I have to tell you that this troubles me.

It’s nearly impossible for a poet in America to make a living by writing–unless, of course, you’re Maya Angelou, and you have your own line of decorative housewares at Hallmark. That would help, I imagine. The rest of us have no such luck. If we’re lucky, we publish a few poems a year in reputable magazines, and maybe eventually we cobble together enough poems to send out a publishable manuscript. Eventually, maybe that manuscript wins a prize, and is published–and then you’re sitting around your house with boxes of books that you can’t move because, oh yes, no one reads modern poetry.

No one reads modern poetry in America, at least. Some time after the Beat poets finger-snapped their way in and out, Americans stopped reading poems. The poets didn’t go away, and no, modern poetry doesn’t usually rhyme and is almost never written in iambic pentameter. If your first thought of poetry is a stuffy Romantic poet waxing lyrical on a bluebird, you’re out of date.

So I–the silly poet who likes to make jewelry and watch science fiction–am going to start recommending books to you, the great void, once a week. I’ll try to have them up on Monday nights, but I’m a poet, and thus I am flighty.

This week I’d like to recommend to you Pimone Triplett’s first book, Ruining the Picture. If you’ve been away from poetry for a while, this is a great place to jump on in. Triplett colorfully weaves from family memories to Greek mythology, and back again. And if the phrase “Greek mythology” is turning you off, think again–Triplett doesn’t just tell you what happened, she reimagines it. Take this book in small doses, with a hot cup of tea, and get drawn into a world of mosaic artwork mirroring memory. You’ll enter the psyche of Persephone, pomegranate-eater. You will find poems that are beautiful but not flowery, and deep, yet inviting enough to welcome even the most errant sheep back to the fold.

Come on back to the world of poetry; it’s warm here, and we have cake.

Ruining the Picture, by Pimone Triplett. Check it out.

New in my Etsy shop!

More Renaissance Faire goodness.

Are you NaNoWriMoing?

I am. I’m writing a very awful fantasy novel. I’ve got 3,096 words at this point–I’m already behind–but it’s a fun thing to do. Especially when, like me, you haven’t done much planning on your plot at all. I have a vague idea of where this is going to go, but I’m happy just letting it flow for the moment.

In other news, we got back from Alabama, and the funeral, late last night. I still hate flying, but there’s a certain magic to flying at night and looking down at all the city lights.

Happy Halloween!

I took the above picture at the N.C. Renaissance Faire–it’s held in Charlotte, and my husband and I attended this past weekend. We walked through a dungeon showcasing methods of torture, and this lovely scene greeted us as we were on our way out. They’re obviously dummies, but they freak me out nonetheless.

Tomorrow: we’re flying home to Alabama to attend the visitation & funeral of my husband’s grandmother. Back sometime Saturday.

Tutorial: Wire Hooks

Let me preface this by explaining to you that I absolutely hate buying something if I know that I can make it myself. Scarves? I can knock one out in a couple of hours (not that it really gets cold enough here to need them). Ear wires? Why, yes! And in a few different styles, no less.

These, however, are tutorials for another time. Tonight, we’re making simple wire hooks. That’s right–you can create your own necklace clasps!

Let’s start off with a quick review of our tools.

From top left, going clockwise, we have our chain nose pliers, wire cutters, and round nose pliers. We already discussed these in the Simple Loops tutorial, so head on over if you need a refresher.

For this tutorial, we’re going to be using a couple of new tools–an anvil or steel bench block (I’m using a small anvil), and a chasing or ball peen hammer. We’ll come back to these later. To make your hook, you’re also going to need about two and a half inches of 18 gauge wire.

Oh! I almost forgot a tool! You’re going to need a simple, round ballpoint pen or wooden dowel of similar size. Most hook tutorials will have you make the loop at one end of the hook first–I don’t really get a nice, round hook if I do it that way. You’re going to take your 18 gauge wire and wrap it around the pen, crossing the wires where they meet to form an X.

Slip the wire off of the pen or dowel. See how the crossed edges meet in the back? Our wire is lovely and fish-like at this point, but we need to change the directions of the X-ed wire to move in different directions.

Get your round nose pliers, and grip the wire on the top half of the X, right where the wires meet. Carefully turn the wire down, so that it is facing the same direction as the bottom loop of the X.

Do the same thing with the bottom wire–gripping it with your round nose pliers, turn it gently at the point where it was crossed with the other wire. You want your hook to look like the picture above after you’ve turned both wires. Now, let’s grab our wire cutters–we need to trim some excess wire away. We want to leave between 1/3 and 1/2 of an inch of wire on the top–this is going to make our large loop, the one you’ll use to attach the hook to your project.

After you’ve trimmed your wire, pick up your round nose pliers and grip the end of the cut wire farther along the shaft of the pliers than you’d normally go. We’re going to make a large loop here. With your pliers in your dominant hand, grip the wire with your other hand and curl the wrist holding the pliers so that the wire goes over the top and forms a loop (if the pliers are in your right hand, you’ll curl your wrist counter-clockwise).

There! We’ve got our large loop made. Grab the wire cutters again–we have to make one more cut. We’re going to trim the uncurled edge of wire very short–a little less than a quarter of an inch.

With your round nose pliers, grip the end of the wire–but this time, use the very small tips of the pliers. We’re going to curl the wire over to make a very small loop. If you’re right-handed and holding the hook the same way I am in the picture, you’re going to curl your wrist counter-clockwise again.

Dun dun dunnn! We’ve made our hook! This piece is going to see a lot of wear and tear, though, and even with the thick wire we used, it could use a little more hardening. This is where the hammer and anvil come in.

Place your hook on your anvil or bench block. Using the large, flat end of your hammer, strike all over the piece (you’ll need to either tape the hook down or use your non-dominant hand to hold the piece down–my non-dominant hand is occupied with holding the camera). This is called work hardening–we don’t want to smash the hook to bits, but we want to lightly work it over with the hammer to stabilize and harden our pattern. I like to hammer the large, curved part (the bit we made with the pen) a little more than the rest. This makes the hook fan out a bit. You want to strike dead on the piece, dragging your hammer a bit toward the outside–strike and pull, sort of. It might take some getting used to–and you might accidentally hammer your fingers once or twice–but you’ll get the hang of it.

The finished piece. See how the outside curve is more hammered than the rest? I’ve also pushed the edges of the hook closer, to make for a more secure clasp.

To attach the clasp to your jewelry, you’ll use your chain nose pliers (I knew I photographed them for a reason!) to gently open the large loop you made. Holding the hook in your non-dominant hand, use the pliers to pull the edge of the loop toward you (not out–this will disrupt the shape of the loop and possibly weaken the wire). Hook the loop into your jewelry and then use the pliers to push the loop away from you and closed. The hook needs a large loop on the end of the other side of your jewelry in order to clasp closed–you could use some large extender chain, a large wire wrapped loop, or something similar.

You can experiment heavily with this hook–make a longer, more serpentine S-hook, make the small loop even smaller, or turn the large loop into a spiral. Go to town with it! And most importantly, give your handmade jewelry the handmade closure it needs and make your own hooks, okay?

Yes, I totally photographed this thing on top of an X-Men comic book.

As always, do comment if you have any questions about the tutorial–I’m happy to answer.

Seriously shiny!

Closeup shot of the bottle pendants I mentioned yesterday–I love these. This one’s up in my Etsy shop right now, and I’m going to list the other one tomorrow, probably. They’re quite fragile, but I just love filling them with random things and wrapping them up.

I’ve definitely got to get more of these bottles; I think for the next round, I’ll fill them with actual messages–handwritten or maybe pulled from the world of literature–and some teeny tiny charms, and definitely more glitter.