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Book review: Jewelry Design with Knitted Wire



Nealay Patel has put together some lovely projects for this new Kalmbach book, Jewelry Designs with Knitted Wire.  You might remember that I shared a project with you, using metal mesh as a design element in a necklace named Midnight Sky of Distant Stars.  We also looked at using it in the third chapter of Bored By Back Stitch again as a design element.  Nealay's take on this material is broader and slightly different from mine, so I was very interested to see what he was doing with it.

Wire mesh in three forms is explored in this book: hollow (flexible, the type I used), flat (stiff), and mesh filled with leather cord.  There is a good basics section included, with the tools and special findings you will need to add this material to your repertoire.  You probably already have most of them!


There are 32 projects included.  Most treat the mesh like an armature: stitch through it, fill it, treat is like soutache braid.  But other treatments push a little further: slip it over wire, use it as necklace straps, form it into bezels.  This last idea is pretty exciting, don't you think?


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