Celtic Knot Elvish Pendant

Until now, I had only used a celtic knot once in my jewellery designs: the Slytherin pendant in this instructable. As time went by, I found myself liking that pendant best of the four and regularly wearing it. So, I started sketching out different celtic knot designs. It started with the same design as in the previously mentioned 'ible, but then I decided to make it a bit longer.

Having done that, I started getting a bit of an Elvish vibe from it. I made the ends slightly sharper and then started to really feel the Elvish look! With that feeling in mind, I remembered this really amazing piece of sea glass I found on a beach in Denmark. Just as I'd hoped, its triangular shape fitted perfectly with the design.

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Addition to the previously written intro - this pendant is now for sale! You can find it on my Esty here.

To make your own pendant, you'll need:

- wire, gauge 30/ 0,2 mm and gauge 22/ 0,6 mm

- pliers

- a necklace

- triangular piece of sea glass/ stone/ anything you want to use!

- a pencil

- a piece of paper

If you want to, go ahead and experiment a bit with your own celtic knot design!

The design in the left bottom corner is the one I ended up using. The short line is 3 cm, the long lines are 4,5 cm. Make sure your piece of sea glass fits in your design! If it doesn't, make small adjustments until it fits.

When working with wire, celtic knots can get a bit tricky sometimes. This is why I prefer bending the shape first. I used colour coated copper wire for the experiment, simply because it's quite thin, cheap and really soft so easy to bend.

Take your wire, don't cut it off yet, and bend it following the first curve of the design. Once you reach the bottom, let it continue straight. This will be your turning point. Bend the wire in a straight angle and then keep bending it until the wires are close enough. Make the same slight bend as on the other side before starting to follow the second curve. Let the wire pass over the part you've already bent.

Follow the curve until you get to the next turning point. Create a corner, just like you did in last step, followed by a slight bend before getting to the next curve. At this point, estimate how much wire you'll need to bend the last part and cut it off. Let the wire go under the first wire you cross and over the second one. That should leave you with something like the third picture. Keep following the design to end the last part, not forgetting the slight curve at the end.

At this point, it's a good idea to take your piece of sea glass and see if it fits the way you want it to, since this will be your base shape.

Repeat the steps you took to bend the base wire to create the filing line, with one difference: you don't need those little curves at the corners, just bending a corner will do. I'd recommend joining them together before ending the bending progress, adding it afterwards can get a bit tricky.

Once that part is finished, hold the wires in their correct positions and bend the wires around the corners, letting them follow the design of the wire that they are now pretty much on top of.

Take your thin wire and start wrapping at the part where you just ended the wires. Wire weaving this area firstwill prevent the base wires from shifting. The first part is a bit tricky, but once you get a few wraps in you'll find the entire pendant becoming sturdier.

When you get to the first corner, follow the outer line for a while, until the inner line is next to it again. After the corner, just keep weaving between the inner and outer lines.

Wrapping past the points where the wires cross is a bit harder than wrapping the other parts, but the only thing I can say is just keep wrapping. Try to keep a close eye on where the wire is going and where it should go, there are a lot of lines here!

Once you get to the point where the top of your sea glass sits, stop wrapping and end your wire. Cut off a second piece of wire and start at the beginning again, now going in the other direction.

Just keep doing the same thing you did for the first time and keep wrapping. It's quite a bit to wrap, especially with wire as thin as this, so put on a movie or something and don't try to rush, that won't leave you with a better looking wrap.

Using another piece of thin wrapping wire, wrap the very bottom of the pendant. Continue weaving between the sides until you get to the point where the bottom of your sea glass will be.

Important thing to do is to hold the sea glass in position while wrapping. Keep weaving, just like the bit in last step, but now weaving over the piece of sea glass. This will leave you with a place for the point of the sea glass to sit in.

Once the tip of the glass has been covered, turn over your pendant. The inner wire on the back is the perfect place to wrap your wire around to end it. As you can see, I took out the sea glass to do this, but be careful not to change the shape of the part you just wove.

To secure the top of the glass as well, start a new wire on the top corner as shown, where you ended the basic weaving. Let the wire go over the glass and wrap it around the outer base line at the point you think it looks best. Wrap back and forth until you have three line of wire. Repeat this for the other diagonal.

Just like with the bottom part of the wrap, you can end this wire on the back of the pendant as well. Simply wrap it around the inner wire a few time before cutting it off.

To add the pendant to a necklace, what I like to do is bend these little 8-shapes. They can be used in the same way as regular jump rings, but they look just a bit fancier if you ask me. Add one to both corners and look for the middle of your necklace. Open one of the chain links and add the pendant to the necklace.

And after that, it's finished! The wrapping and weaving definitely takes a bit of time, but it gives such an intricate and detailed looking end result!