Pages

Thursday, July 28, 2011

DIY Tutorial – Make Your Own Beaded Stitch Markers!

Beaded Stitch Markers


This weekend the weather was terrible. It's been raining off and on for days, but this is Florida and this is the rainy season. Here's the view from my kitchen window yesterday...


Real nice, huh? If you look close enough you can see my yard and my neighbor's yard beginning to flood slightly. That's always nice...I know the dog really loves it when the backyard is completely saturated with water, not really actually.

I decided it was a good day to do some crafting, so in between laundry loads I made up some new stitch markers. Most knitters have these among their knitting paraphernalia and use them to keep track of where they are in a row as well as to remind them to do something like increase or decrease in a certain spot of their knitting.


The only skill that you need in making these is knowing how to make a simple loop on a headpin. I used various sizes of jump rings and split rings to hang my beaded dangles. The smallest sized jump ring used in this project is 8 mm, which will fit up to a size US 8 knitting needle. The size 10 mm jump rings will fit up to a size US 10 knitting needle. The split rings used for this project were 12 mm, which will fit up to a size US 15 knitting needle.

Here's what you will need to complete this project:

Tools:

  • Round-nose pliers
  • Flat-nose pliers
  • Wire cutters
  • Ruler or measuring tape
Materials:

  • Headpins - need to be long enough to have room to make a loop
  • Jump rings and/or split rings - 8 mm, 10 mm, 12 mm in size
  • Glass, metal, plastic, gemstones beads in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors
Instructions:


To make your bead dangles, first string your beads onto the headpin.


Using either your fingers or the flat-nose pliers, make a 90-degree bend. Next, trim the wire using your wire cutters. I trimmed mine leaving a 1/4 inch of wire to form my simple loop. The length of wire you leave for your loop depends on how big you want to make the loop. This will be a trial and error process if you haven't made simple loops before.


I wanted a fairly small loop, so I placed my wire near the very tip of the round nose pliers.


Holding onto the beaded end with my other hand, I then turned my pliers to form a loop with the wire. I turned until a complete loop was formed. Your bead dangle is now done.


Next, open up a jump ring with your pliers and just slip the loop of the bead dangle onto the jump ring, then using the pliers again, close the jump ring. For attaching the bead dangles to the split rings, I opened up the loop of the dangle as I would a jump ring, placed it on the split ring, and closed up the loop with my pliers.


There's your finished stitch marker!

Not much too them really. A few basic beading skills are all that's really needed to complete these. They're a great rainy day project, and they make a fun gift for those knitters in your life.
source :  http://craftfloozy.blogspot.com/2011/06/project-12-beaded-stitch-markers.html
Happy crafting!


0 comments:

Post a Comment