DIY Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim, Wire Jewelry Tutorial

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It's the 7th day of Chinese New Year today and according to tradition, today is everyone's birthday when everyone grows one year older. So I decided to prepare a gift for everyone! :)

Remember I have mentioned making your own pearl trim to replace Cubic Zirconia Trim in my previous blog-post? Becca tried making Diamond Circle Ring with her DIY Pearl Trim and it worked out pretty well too!

After I blogged about the ring that Becca made, I started to receive mails asking me how to go about it, I explained, and most of these people get what I meant, and then I realized - actually the only challenge my dear readers have is to identify the bead size and what are the wires gauges and the length they need to cut. I figure I might as well write a simple tutorial for it.

And here's the overview of the finished Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim made with wires. I placed it on top of Diamond Circle Ring so you could see the Cubic Zirconia Trim can totally be replaced by knotted pearl trim.

It's easy to make a pearl trim of your own, though it's entirely up to you if you would like to make one with wires or thread. For this DIY entry, I am using wires.

Ready to DIY a Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim of your own now? Let's start! But before anything else, I need to make a clear statement about this tutorial. :)

This tutorial is a tribute to the Handmade Wire Jewelry and Craft Community and strictly NOT FOR SALE. Instructions are for personal use only. Any attempt on reuse of this document’s text, pictures or any resources without the author's authorization is strictly prohibited.

You CAN teach the technique to others once you learn the technique; you CAN NOT use text nor pictures from this tutorial as teaching material to teach others. 

You CAN produce this Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim once you learned the techniques; you CAN NOT reproduce the EXACT Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim for sale, but you can make them as gift to your friends and family – you get the idea. You CAN create your own Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim with your own designs/colors/materials, by applying the techniques introduced in this tutorial for sale, but yourself must make it instead of your employees.


P/S: Though you can totally follow the steps posted here, you are welcome to download Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim tutorial in PDF format for keepsake.


Tools needed:
1. Flush cutter
2. Chain nose pliers
3. Round nose pliers (Optional, in case you prefer to use round nose pliers than chain nose pliers)
4. Ruler
5. Marker Pen

Materials needed for a Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim:
1. 2 X 5 inches of 28ga round soft wires.
2. 10 X 3mm Swarovski Crystal Pearl beads (make sure your bead allow 28ga wires to go through 4 times before you start the project!)

Above picture shows the tools and materials needed for this project.

Step 1: Tie the First Knot

Place both 28ga wires on your ruler, measure 1 inch from either one wire-tails. Mark a point on each wire.

Cross the wires at marked points.

Fold down the wires on your upper right.

Twist the same wires behind.

OVERVIEW: First knot completed.

Step 2: Constructing Knotted Pearl Trim

Gather both wires, and then slid in a 3mm pearl bead through. Push the bead close to the first knot as much as possible.

Spread the wires right underneath the bead.

Bring the wires on your bottom-right to the left by placing the wires on top of the bottom-left wires

Bring the wires on your bottom-left to the right by placing it on top of the curved wires on your right, then bring it out from behind.

Gently pull the wires side by side to make the knot smaller.

NOTE: Please remember the nature of wires and the nature of fabric thread are very different, for fabric thread we can simply pull both sides of strings together and the knot will turn out just nice, but this does not apply to wires knotting. To produce neat knots with wires, please pull each side of wires one-by-one, until the space is completely closed.

OVERVIEW: Gently pull each side of wires one-by-one, until finally the knot is completely closed. Repeat these steps to bring in another 6 beads.

Step 3: Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim's Closure

Always reserve 3 last beads for closure. Stop sliding in beads when you only have 3 beads left.

Slid 1 bead for the left side of wires, and 2 beads for the right side of wires.

Thread the longer side of wires (left) through the bead in the middle out of the last 3 beads. Observe the remaining 2 beads are not locked by knots.

Gently pull both sides of wires simultaneously. The Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim is almost done.

Wrap the remaining wires on the spaces between beads TWICE for each side, following the mentioned direction (red arrow) in above picture.

Trim away the excess wires. The Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim is now completed!

 

Told you it was easy! You could also make a Closed Circle Knotted Pearl Trim with larger diameter and more beads and then wear it as a ring directly, or, put on the ear-hook to turn it into a pair of simple earrings!

Last but not least, like I've said - though you could always come back to this blog post for reference, you may also download the PDF version of this for keepsake. :)

Now it's all yours - go ahead and make something, have fun!

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Corra @ de Cor's Handmades