What I’m Learning This Fall — Wire Weaving

by Barbara MacDougall.
(Woodstock, Ontario, Canada)

My very first wire-weaving. Total fail. I thought I had it figured out. Everything is wrong… the base wire gauge is way too fine, the weaving has too many gaps.

I’ve been drooling over Debbie Benninger’s work for a year or more now, ever since I met her when she bought some turquoise cabs from me. She won several Fire Mountain prizes recently. I bought some of her tuts and a book, also got Sarah Thompson’s Craftsy tut and book… Let’s just say, sometimes what I’m doing works, most times it’s a complete disaster.

This time I went back to the books, showed Debbie what I was working on at a show we were both doing and she gave me several pointers. “Cobra” was the result.

My biggest bad habit is making pointless twiddles to finish off wires so I end up with a big clump of nothing. Watched Nicole Hanna tuts the other day to try to sort that out.

This chubby heart came out not too badly. I started out by making a long random-width ribbon of wire, then started wrapping and trapping the stone.

My method of working is to pick a new weave style and start weaving, then pick out the bead, then see what happens — let it become more free form than controlled.

Arkansas quartz stone. Again, started out by making a long piece of wrapped wire, then started wrapping it around and trapping the quartz.

The trick is to not cut the base wires too short to begin with, or leave them too long and end up overworking the piece. With care, the wire weaving is very forgiving: you can wrap, unwrap and rewrap it.

Barbara MacDougall
Barbara MacDougall Fine Turquoise