Getting hooked on crocheted wire and bead jewellery - A closer look at crocheted wire jewellery handmade by Angela Smith Jewellery
I have been crocheting with wire and beads for almost as long as I have been knitting with wire and beads so for twenty years or so - probably closer to twenty five now.
When I started kitting and crocheting wire jewellery there was no facebook, instagram, pinterest or other social media platforms around and computers were very different to today, so most of my jewellery making was developed by experimentation.
I am not the worlds best knitter and definitely not an expert crocheter I remember crocheting a "blanket" when I was a student which ended up with six corners so it is safe to say my crocheting skills are quite poor!
To this day I cannot follow a crochet pattern - they don't make sense to me at all, and even after crocheting hundreds of pieces of jewellery, a handful of bowls, wall art, and other stand alone "ornaments" I still hold my hook wrong, wrap the wire around or over the hook instead of guiding the hook to the wire and have no idea if I am crocheting a double or treble or half double stitch, and yes I did just look up the names of the stitches but somehow I end up with matching earrings and good looking brooches. I guess to some extent now my crocheted jewellery is created by muscle memory.
So when people tell me they can't crochet, neither can I!
How I crochet
First I choose a fine wire no thicker than 0.5mm
Then I thread most of the beads I want to use onto the wire
a slip knot onto the the hook with a about 2 - 3 inch tail
Then I start to crochet, either starting with a short length of chain stitch if I am crocheting a bracelet, for example, then the chain is the length I wish the width of the bracelet to be, or if I am crocheting a circle, then usually the chain is no more than five stitches, joined to make a loop.
The rest is made up - crocheting a stitch of whatever size into each stitch of the chain, sometimes adding a single chain stitch between, sometimes crocheting into the same stitch more than once. I am guided by how the piece is forming as I crochet, so I never really know how a piece is going to look until it is completed.
If I am crocheting earrings, I try to keep it very basic as I have to remember how I made the first one to get a matching pair.
It seems to work - these are just a few of the crocheted pieces of Jewellery I currently have available on my website.
