I saw a bracelet on a free tutorial in copper and I thought, why not try that in sterling silver.  So this is what I came up with.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

First you get 2 pieces of wire about double the length you need the finished bracelet to be.   I used 20 gauge sterling silver wire.  I find that 18 gauge works a bit better.  I didn't have any on hand so I went ahead with the 20 gauge.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Next you'll fold both of these wires in half to create the bracelet.  Using a 28 gauge weaving wire make 4 loops around the base of the first loop you created.  Now bend the outside wires out to the outside of the bracelet and loop the next set of wires.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Continue this alternating pattern until you reach the tip of the bracelet.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

To finish the bracelet you can wrap two of the leftover ends around the base of the bracelet and then create a hook with the other two.  Or you can create a separate hook eye closure.  It is pretty easy to work with so do what you like to do.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Here are a few more photos.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

You can find more of my jewelry available for sale on our Facebook Shop Page and read about my story on Website.

This week I'm sharing with you a revisit to that bracelet I did last week.  As I mentioned in the last post I picked up a tutorial on Etsy to get an idea of how the bracelet was made.  It was cumbersome and time consuming.  I literally spent 8.5 hours on one bracelet.  I decided I wanted to go back and rework some of the steps of the tutorial in order to make it a little easier on my hands and maybe cut back some of the time spent on it.  I'll share my photos and some basic steps on what I did.  The main thing to learn here is that tutorials are intended to teach.  Not replication. But teach.  I learned basically what needed to be done structurally.  I now know that I can make this bracelet with any weave at all and in any number of wires.  Here's what I did; I hope you enjoy.


First let's start with my finished bracelet.



Ok now here's my steps.  I cut the same number of wires (11) that the tutorial said but literally you could use any number you wanted. I also shorted the wires from the 11 inches in the tutorial to 9 inches.  I have small wrists so this size fits me perfectly.   I am going to make another one with a thicker center set of wires. Maybe using a basket weave instead of this simple one. I was going for time saving on this one.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

 I then just took the wires an created sets using my favorite weaves.  I created two weaves and I wanted to have two plain wires in the mix as well.  As it turns out, I needed to go back and cut one more plain wire to have enough. So this piece used 12 wires instead of 11.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

 Next using a basket weave style stitch, I began to put the three woven rows and the two blank rows together.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

 After one end was stitched, I made an over under "braid" until the ends lined up.  I did remove some of the weave at the end to make sure the ends all lined up.  I then used that same basket weave at the end to bring the bracelet closed.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

 I then cut and curled the ends to make loops for my clasp to fit in.

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Photography and Jewelry by Renee Sosanna Olson

Tutorials are a great way to learn how to weave wire.  Don't be hard on yourself if it doesn't turn out exactly how the picture looks.  The idea is to learn the basic craft and then create your own designs. And most of all, have fun.   

This week I thought I would try a new bracelet Tutorial  I will link the Tutorial at the bottom of this entry.

This is the finished bracelet.

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

The tutorial asked that I start out with 11 pieces of 18 gauge wire.  I only had 20 gauge so I used that instead.  I think it worked ok.

It starts with a weave to connect the all the wires together and then you weave a specific set of wires with a specific weave.

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

Jewelry & Photography by Renee Sosanna Olson

It took me about 8 hours to complete this weave.  I think that I can streamline it a bit and change the tutorial to work for my style.  Mine ended up not looking exactly like the tutorial but that's ok  I think it gives it a bit of personal style.

I recorded a short video to get an idea of how it looks.




I purchased this tutorial on Etsy at MaxxBelleCreations - The tutorial is here for $6.  Not a bad investment to learn this technique.