Wire is a most versatile medium. You can create art pieces made entirely of wire, use it to construct embellishments to add to other media, and use it to connect the parts of your creations.

The basics skills needed to make this medium work for you are very simple, but they can be taken to levels as elaborate as you can imagine (See the review of Jane Davis’ book in this issue). As simple as they are, however, wireworking skills are difficult to illustrate clearly. We are going to give it our best shot - using a combination of diagrams and actual photos. The more you practice, the better you will become and the more possibilities will present themselves, so don’t give up. If you are having difficulty, try using a thinner gauge wire which bends more easily for you.
Findings:
Pictured at the right are some of the most commonly useed findings: an eye pin, a head pin, and two jump rings. They can all be purchased, but with the exception of the head pin, they can be easily made by you.

You *could* make your own head pins - by putting your piece of wire in a vise with just a small bit sticking up (1/16" or less) and bashing it with a hammer. But the result is a “head” that is pretty rough around the edges and needs to be filed. We prefer to buy those and usually make the others for ourselves.
Legend:
In the following illustrations, we have combined diagrams with actual photos of the wire. We’ve never made something look as perfect as those diagrams, and we don’t want you to be disappointed in your results. The legend on the right explains our symbols. The Pliers symbols refer to how they would appear if you were looking straight at the tips.
Making Eye Pins:
(A) Place the jaws of your chain nose pliers about 1/4" from the end of the wire. (B) Make a 90º bend against the edge of the pliers. This will give you a rounded corner. (C) Place the jaws of the round nose pliers near the end of the wire. Please note that the jaws of these pliers are cone shaped. The further up the jaws you place the wire, the larger the ring you will make.You need to “eyeball” the appropriate placement to match the amount of wire you have bent over. (D) Grip the wire and turn the pliers until the wire end almost touches the rounded corner. Use both types of pliers to adjust and straighten your eye pin.
Making Jump Rings:
Jump rings need to have some strength when they are used in craft projects, so we recommend some experimenting to make sure you use the correct gauge wire for the size and strength you need. Choose a piece of doweling that is the diameter you want the inside of your rings to be. (A) Use the very tips of your round nose pliers to make just a small loop at the end of a long piece of wire (practice will tell you how much wire to use for the number of jump rings you need). The purpose of this loop is to give you something to hold on to during the next step - something that won’t puncture your finger! (B) Hold the loop in place against the dowel and wind the wire snugly around it until you have a few more than the number of rings you need. Be careful not to let the wire overlap and try to keep the rings upright and parallel. (C) Slide the coiled wire off the dowel, and using your wire cutters, cut along one side of the coil. We find it easiest to use the tip of the cutters to cut one ring at a time - but always in a line along the same side of the coil. This will yield uniform jump rings.
Using Jump Rings:
To use a jump ring, you open it, feed things onto it, and close it. You can make whole chains if you want to. But, the method you use for opening and closing is critical to the integrity of the ring. To open, use two pair of chain nose pliers to pull the ring in opposite directions on either side of the cut. (You could use your round nose pliers in place of a second pair of chain nose but the grip on the jump ring is more tenuous.) Close by reversing this move. Never pull the cut itself apart or your jump ring will not close correctly again. It’s difficult to see in a scan, but the jump rings on the left of the picture have been opened properly and could be bent right back into shape. The ones on the right are hopelessly lost because the opening has been pulled apart.
Now, let’s take a look at some decorative Head Pins and some ways to use these parts we’ve made.
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