Woven Bangle

[Nick martin]

Really impressive and stunning too! wow!

Nick

[Petal]

Stylish, elegant, understated and absolutely stunning Indi.

[ps_bond]

What they said

You've got an evenness in your weave that I really like; the end caps are deceptively simple and extremely well executed.

[Kathryn Harrison]

That is so nice! It is incredibly neat and such lovely finishing touches.

[LydiaNiz]

You have totally nailed it. Beautifully done!

[MeadMoon]

I can only echo what everyone else has said. Beautiful!

[surfergirl]

Oh my goodness! Thank you so so much for such a positive response EVERYONE xx. You have boosted my confidence no end!

I have come up with a collection of woven pieces (currently rings and bangles and am working on a neckpiece) and hope they will be good sellers. The bangle sizing is adjustable somewhat but the rings I’ve made are not.

Is each 'set of threads in the weave a single round wire, with 2 twisted strands of wire and another of round wire, then woven together with others of the same mix??

Yes – that is correct, Jill. Though the twisted strand is made up of three wires as I only had 0.3mm wire and with two strands, looked a bit feeble. There are 8 of these ‘sets’.

Presumably you need to keep quite some tension of the 'strands' to keep them tight and so tidy??

There is a bit of trial and error with the tensioning, but once you learn how much the wires can be manipulated – you’re there. It’s not woven like how you would braid hair - holding onto each strand of hair and plaiting from the top – but from the bottom up. Each set of wires is alternately folded front and back, one set of wires is folded to cross the others, then each set folded the opposite way over the set that is crossing them. Rinse and repeat.

I love the style of the end caps, how are the strands held together, fixed in these??

No special finishing to the ends of the wire – the woven portion ‘hangs loose’ within the end cap but this is long enough that it doesn’t matter. The weave is soldered to the edging wires (D wire in this case) and these in turn are soldered to the inside of the end caps.

Thanks again for all the comments – they really are appreciated. I’m pleased with the finishing of ends caps on this. I worked through 240 (due to the hideous firescale), 320, 400, 600 grits before polishing with tripoli on a bristle brush and rouge powder on a soft mop, in the Foredom. I’m still scared by my grinder-cum-polishing machine otherwise I would use that instead. Previous polishing attempts (on other pieces) I used up to 320 grit and tried to remove remaining marks with a hard mop with tripoli. It worked to an extent but left polishing depressions on the surface. Combination of small mop, not moving it around enough and taking shortcuts (not going beyond 320 grit). I’ve found going up to 600 this time has really made a difference needing only a light hand with the tripoli/bristle brush in the Foredom = no rippled surface. Yay! I know that working through the grits has been mentioned time and time again, but for some reason, I just wasn’t doing it. Lesson learnt.


Thanks for the comment on the photo, Dennis. I’m having an ongoing jewellery photography battle with background, lighting and jewellery arrangement so am grateful for the feedback. If anyone’s interested (or still reading after trudging through my reply!), the images have been manipulated in photoshop – only the exposure and some colour balancing (again, trial and error “ooohh…what does this do..?...”). I used two layers of the same image. Layer 1 over exposed, layer 2 a bit underexposed. Created a layer mask on layer 2 and applied the gradient tool which kind of merged the two layers.

[CJ57]

If you could bite the bullet with your big polisher Indi you would love it and you would have had the end pieces polished without the worry of grooves it's just so much easier and quicker too. Having said that the finish with the Foredom is lovely

[medusa]

Awesome! well done you!

[Tabby66]

Thanks Indi, for answering my questions, that is some very tidy soldering of the D wire to the weave, not flooding it with solder!! Do you use panels or strip solder?? I love this piece, not my type of work, or usually 'my thing', but I can see the precision of the workmanship and love the style!!
Now you've also piqued my curiosity about layers in photoshop, I've cropped images and manipulated them for exposure or sharpness, but haven't been able to work the layers function out....I can only ever see one layer and seem to lose others.........sooo much to learn!!

Thanks for answering my questions!!
Tabby xx