jewelry

Wags Wicone tool for Kumihimo

Wags Wicone, what a great name! This clever little tool was invented by the husband and father of two jewellery makers. As with so many of the best designs it is very simple, but very effective. It is perfectly possible to wrap wire around any number of household objects to create interesting shapes. A knitting needle makes a very good …

Happy New Year

Happy New Year to all lovers of Kumihimo! This is the time of year when we can look back over the year and see what we have achieved, as well as looking forward to what we hope to accomplish in the coming year. I feel that I learnt a lot in 2013 about how to play with Kumihimo to achieve …

My latest tutorial in Digital Beading, Nautical Knots

This is the front page of my latest tutorial for Digital Beading. It is called Nautical Knots. The brief was to make something summery, so I went for a nautical theme and got the chance to use these adorable sea charms. Writing tutorials for a fully digital magazine is interesting because they do not have to work to the same …

Thank you

Thank you very much for the great reaction to my latest tutorial, Treasure Nets. It means a lot to me to know that people like what I am doing and it encourages me to work hard and experiment to get the next design together! For this design I felt I needed to return to explore Round Braid because the two …

Treasure Nets

I have been working on this for quite a few weeks and I am finally ready to publish the tutorial. As an experiment I have also produced a 2 minute video clip to support the tutorial. The idea is that it is short enough to email to anyone who buys the tutorial. In 2 minutes I am just able to …

You can’t go wrong with a bit of bling!

These ultra sparkly beads work particularly well in the Sitting Pretty bracelet. The beads perch up on the modified ladder braid to catch the light and maximise the sparkle. The beads themselves are not cheap, but this design uses very few. With less than 12 beads you can make a real statement. The beads can be fragile, so a design …

Moody Blues

This is a version of my Luscious Lentils bracelet. Instead of using lentil beads I have used these gorgeous blue dagger beads. The beads in the middle are size 6, which are great for creating a chunky bracelet.

Kumihimo and Lampwork, the perfect marriage!

I am always on the look out for interesting cones and focals for use with Kumihimo and when I came across these amazing bells and cones made by the very talented lampwork artist, Kat Newman, I knew I had struck gold! Kat and I have been working together to take Kumihimo jewellery in a new direction and here are the …

What is this?!

I have been working on something a little bit different and I am nearly ready to ‘unveil’ it! This is just a teaser because the interesting part is at either end of the braid, out of shot! I have been working in collaboration with a wonderful lampwork artist and I have pulled together some new designs based on her work. …

Happy Halloween

Happy Halloween to you all. It is never too late to make a quick piece of jewellery to suit the occasion. The spider web pendant is very quick to make, especially if you have already tried wire wrapping.  The spider bracelet is made using the Sitting Pretty tutorial. Alternatively a simple Round Braid or Half Round Braid in orange and …