Wednesday 23 May 2018

Crowning it

On Christmas morning my partner of three years proposed to me.

Being a) a person who is always either making things or thinking about making things and b) not wealthy, it was clear that a noticeable part of this celebration would be handmade and DIY. As of writing, I have started three wedding projects.

One of them is even finished - and what I'll be sharing today (Please don't panic if you find wedding stuff dull as ditchwater, there will be non-wedding projects covered here too).


A few weeks before the question was popped, chatting idly, a friend had suggested that a magical woodland theme might be cute. The image this evoked immediately was so clear and so, so me that the decision was made right there and then. I'll get on to the first project I started on later, but for now, here is my second project, and the first to finish.

I'd read about knitting with wire, but hadn't tried it. When I started looking at bridal tiaras and crowns for inspiration I had first thought of a laurel wreath like a Greek Goddess - since the bridal party aesthetic should evoke Titania's court in A Midsummer Night's Dream. Some research suggested that buying a nice one would be beyond my budget, so I had to think about how to make one.

Thus, knitted wire. I'd seen it talked about online; I'm a knitter above all else; and its organic quality of its shape and capacity to have extra decoration added seemed just the thing.

I bought some 36 gauge beading wire and started swatching.
This is in garter stitch on 3.5mm needles. The garter stitch concertinas up - so you have to use more wire to cover your space - and I found the density of the 'fabric' and how it felt to knit with less than ideal.

Switching to 6mm needles and stocking stitch I started to get a fabric I liked much better. You'll find even in something as stiff as wire, stocking stitch still curls up.


I knit on to the end of my reel of wire, added a few beads to see how they would look (lovely) and how practical it would be to add them into the knitted fabric as I went along (not very, for my taste), and started fiddling about with shaping it. Doubling up the bottom by folding the crown makes it sturdier, solves the stocking stitch curl issue, and I found it easy enough to secure the layers together when I went back to add in beads later.
Here is my prototype, modelled by the purplebird -

The fabric was still too diaphanous, but after a little more reading up I decided 24 gauge wire would do nicely and ordered a few reels in copper. While I waited for them to arrive I played with point shapes in some scrap yarn and settled on a broader point style for me and a sharper one for my partner.


Once I'd made my mind up, the knitting of each one took about three days, and beading them a couple more...
 And by gosh they are just what I was hoping they'd be.


Stitch this?

It's harder for me to find time to write about what I'm making than it is to do the making, but while of course it sucks for those o...