Suzanne's Jewelry Wire & Beads Earrings -- A Jewelry Making Project -- Page 2

Step 1:  Using your flush cutter, cut a segment of 18 or 20 gauge wire 7 1/2" long.  1/2 hard wire like our non-tarnish brass Artistic Wire item 0521 or item 0522 work well.  Soft wire will not work as well. 

Step 2:  Using the first step in your fine step jaw pliers, make a loop in the end of the wire with the flush cut.  This is the end that is flat and not sharp.

Step 3:  Straighten the wire.  This is accomplished by grasping the loop with one hand and pulling the wire repeatedly through the jaws of your nylon jaw pliers until it is straight. 

Step 4:  Position the pegs in your jig as shown at right.  The pattern here is shown on the round portion of the WigJig Centaur.  You could also use a WigJig Cyclops.  This pattern uses 10 pegs.  Normally we would start any jewelry making project with just 2 pegs and add pegs as we go.  Because this pattern is so complex, we find that it is easier to position all the pegs in the pattern at the beginning and to use the WigJig Spacer Press to push the wire down on each peg.  Because this pattern is complex, we have created a template in Adobe Acrobat format (.pdf) that shows where to place the pegs for our WigJig Centaur or Cyclops.  If you have the WigJig Cyclops you need to align the center peg in the Cyclops with the center peg in the Centaur shown in the template.  You can find our template for this pattern here. 

Step 5:  In making these earrings, we will wrap the wire around a peg, then remove the wire from the jig and flip it over.  After flipping it over we will then wrap the wire around the next peg.  You will see in the following steps this succession of wrapping the wire then flipping the wire over.  Begin by placing the loop in the end of the wire on the first peg, the center peg in the round pattern as shown at right. 

These instructions continue on the following web page.