Friday 5 February 2016

Copper Heart for Valentine's Day...

I wanted to wire-weave a heart pendant for Valentine's Day, even though it's very time-consuming. It's sure fun to play with.

My big thing at the moment is learning to turn and/or weave around sharp corners without leaving huge lopsided gaps, and I used a design by Nicole Hanna as my jumping off point for the bottom. (The messy top is all mine, though and the bail did NOT work out as envisioned.)



I deliberately left that bloopy loop down at the bottom thinking I'd add a dangle.

Originally that whole circle bit was off-centre and to the right. It looked HORRIBLE! I tend never to plan things. My modus operandi is to weave a length in some pattern and then figure out what to do with it. Sometimes it works out; more often than not it doesn't.

It was when I was manipulating the woven length of wire into shape I realised I'd used too light of a gauge -- 20 instead of 18 -- and the pendant is far too open and wobbly despite its relatively small size: 1-1/4" wide and 1-3/4" tall, including the bail.

I left it for a day and went online and looked at more hearts, and decided to try and rescue it with a bead, found several lighter colours that worked, but being for Valentine's Day, figured go with garnet. Here you can see the way I've trapped the garnet. I also at this point, moved the circle-y bit to the centre of the pendant; one of my fave things about wire-weaving in general is how forgiving it is to move and manipulate. The curls trapping the garnet turned out to be surprisingly secure, but I did weave it in place with a bit of wire just to be sure it didn't pop off.

Here's a slightly different angle showing the curled "prongs". The bead should've been seated further down into the circlet, but I'd already stitched those into place, and there was no more wiggle room.



I'll have this and other pendants and great gifts available for sale at the Woodstock Farmers Market every Saturday, 7:00 a.m. to noon, or email me for availability and shipping/handling cost. You can also contact me via my Facebook page.

Thanks for looking!

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