Lacy Wire Bracelet

I really like the look of crochet lace, and I'm also fond of the malleable yet durable nature of wire; thus, I decided to combine these elements in a simple bracelet.

If you decided to include beads for the bracelet, string all of them onto your wire. How many is really up to you; if you want to have a bead in every stitch you do, you'll need a lot of beads. If your beads are big, you'll need fewer. More is better, so to be safe I strung on 65 because I got carried away. ^^ (Note: my beads were really small, and the wire was pretty thin.) But I ended up using 56.

To crochet, hold your hands like shown above. How you position your left hand doesn't matter too much, but for the right hand, hold as shown.

Start off by making a small loop, but be sure to leave a bit of wire as a tail for later. Just form a small circle with the wire and twist the wire to make the loop fixed. Then insert your hook into the loop.

The stitch I used for this bracelet is the chain stitch. To do this stitch, wrap the wire around the hook counterclockwise (looking at the wire from your finger to the spool of wire) and hook part of the wire with the hook. The farther your hook is on the wire from the loop of the previous step, the bigger the stitch you'll be making, so decide accordingly. This link might help if you're having trouble visualizing.

Because the wire is not as pliable as yarn, crocheting will be somewhat difficult at first. You might want to experiment on some scrap wire before starting this project, just to get a hang of looping and pulling.

To crochet with beads, pull up one (or two, if you want) toward the hook. Then wrap your hook with wire as previously described (counterclockwise, etc.). I found that pinching the bead between my left thumb and middle finger before pulling wire through the hook's loop made the process easier.

Continue crocheting until you have the length that you want. BE CAREFUL NOT TO MAKE YOUR BRACELET TOO LONG; undoing stitches is really hard (to be honest, I'm not quite sure how you would..).

To end your bracelet, slide the last loop off your crochet hook. Take the other end of the crochet chain (with the wire tail) and string that tail into the loop before bending the tail back to look the connection.

Then pull on the wire attached to the last loop and spool of wire so that the loop closes as much as it can. Don't pull too tightly because the wire can snap. Once you've done this, cut the wire attached to the spool and wrap it around the connection you just made. (see next step for more detail)

I pulled too hard on the wire so my wire snapped. >< *oops*

But if this happens to you, just bend the snapped part back and fiddle around until the end is well hidden. Poke the wire tail of the other end through the last loop (the one you just closed) before bending the wire back.

Bend the wire back up afterward and then begin wrapping the tail around the connection between the two ends.

Cut the wire short and bend until the end is well hidden so that it won't poke you. Then you're done! Enjoy your new bracelet, and customize it to your desire.