Crocheting with wire is quite a bit different - there are new terms to learn and different materials to use. Once I entered Michael's I was a bit overwhelmed, but glad that I took this new book in with me. I had to figure out what gauge of wire I needed, and not only did I need to know the difference between a 5/0 and an 8/0 size bead, but I also needed to know where to find this information on the beads! (I feel this could have been more obvious.) So with my 40% off sale I purchased everything I needed to get started.
...then reality set in. I found crocheting with the wire, odd. If you make a mistake on a stitch, it's hard to get out and forever kinked (however, they do have a smoothing tool you can buy). I practiced with a tight stitch, an average stitch and with a loose stitch but never seemed to find my groove. Adding beads were easy, but perhaps too time consuming for me as they need to be pre-strung before crocheting in the correct count and color order. I took a break for a day and picked it up the next day, took another break and tried again. Finally this past weekend I returned all my unused 'crochet with wire' items...
Overall I didn't like my end result, and I didn't feel like investing more time mastering this new art was worth it. Perhaps if I had practiced a bit more, and not been obsessed with immediate perfection I would have enjoyed it, but as you can see from the picture below, this looks like a bracelet curling and curling around, however it's supposed to be a necklace.
Despite being wire, this can't be forced to lay straight.
I mainly disliked two things about crocheting with wire - my inconsistent stitch and the way the necklace would not lay flat. The two patterns I tried were aimed for beginner's, but I just didn't like how mine looked.
In addition to this necklace pattern being wavy it would not lay flat.
Perhaps in a few years I'll try and crochet with wire again...
Thank you for sharing your experience with us! It's nice to know that I'm not the only one who ends up with projects that just don't work. I am curious to try this for myself sometime.
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