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How to: Wrap a wire loop

Wrapping a wire loop is one of the most basic, and the most useful, jewellery making techniques. Wrapped loops look much more professional than simply using looped eyepins, and are also less likely to come apart.

The bad news is they do take a tiny bit of patience to get right. The good news is that the actual technique itself really isn't so hard. All you need is a length of wire, a pair of tweezers and some fine needle nosed pliers. Here goes...

Step One: Use the tweezers to bend the wire to a 90 degree angle approximately 1.5cm from the end - like an upside-down “L” shape.

Step Two: Wrap the bent wire back around the end of your needle nose pliers, crossing over the “stem” once, and making the loop as small as possible.

Step Three: Keeping the pliers inside the loop, take hold of the end of the wire with your fingers or a pair of bent nosed pliers and wrap two or three times around the “stem”.

This is what it looks like if you remove the pliers from the middle of the loop... but don't, just yet:

Keep wrapping...

Step Four: Snip away any excess wire, and slide on a bead.

Step Five: Repeat on the other side until you have a bead with loops on either side.

To make a string of beads: Repeat for the next bead, but on making the second loop, slip the wire through one of the previously made loops on the finished bead just after you have bent it around your needle nosed pliers. You will have to remove your pliers from the loop to do this, so carefully hold it in place when you are wrapping the wire round the “stem” to secure, or else it will lose its shape. This will connect the two beads together.


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