The End Zone

Recently, I ventured into the land of viking knit.  It was fun and I enjoyed watching my piece grow longer and longer, then be compressed into a pretty chain after pulling it through the draw plate.  The one thing that sort of stumped me was how to finish the ends.  Hmm.

There are a lot of mass-produced end caps for just this sort of thing, but you know me...why use something so mundane when you can create something special for your design!

I looked around for handcrafted end caps and tried a few that I found...

You know I love wire...here is a simple and pretty way to end your piece with wire from our own Sue Kennedy...

I also love working with sheet metal.  Keirsten Giles rocks the sheet metal end components and cones!  Have you checked out the last tutorial she shared? So pretty and versatile...these can be used so many different ways!  Take a few moments to drool over this necklace she created using her hand-fabricated metal ends for our Component of the Month for June.  Amazing!

In the end, for my 1st ever viking knit, I chose to do metal sheet...they are much plainer than Keirsten's and turned out a bit big, but I like the effect and will play with that concept more in future work!

The next bracelet (created for our Component of the Month challenge for April), I decided to enamel some small brass caps I had  that fit perfectly over the ends...

For my next bracelet...yet to be created/design still in my head, I want to use these!  Just created them from copper metal clay.  They were pretty difficult to form...you can see they are a bit wonky!  I will definitely work on some more!

What do you like to finish your viking knit with?  Would love some more ideas!

Originally my post idea was just going to cover cones.  When I asked my team mates to show me their cones, of course, Madonna and the Coneheads sprang to mind!  I decided to change the focus!

Melissa Meman
Melismatic Art Jewelry
Art. Life. Love.

Make Your Own Simple Folded End Cones

I love strung and knotted pieces, and it always requires a lot of head-scratching to decide the best way to finish off the ends. Most of the time, I prefer to hide my "dirty work"--all the knots, crimps, etc.--involved in fastening the ends. This idea was inspired by some beadcaps I bought at a gem show:

I thought something like this might work as an end cone, if the two "wings" on either side were wider; then I could curl the ends over and hide more of my dirty work.

The easiest way was to just modify my poppy cap design, creating just two giant "petals." I started with a couple of discs, as usual (these are 1" in diameter, but you could make them any size you like), and textured them:

Then I made center holes, and two more holes on either side of the center hole:

I cut notches on both, as shown, with my metal snips, and rounded the ends a bit:

Then I annealed and pickled, then folded each shape over, as pictured, with my tiny bail-making pliers (but you could use a kebab skewer or something skinny like that as well):

Then I curled the wings on one side inwards, at a slight angle (so that it's slightly pointier at the top):

Then I folded the remaining wings up and over with my fingers, tapped them down gently with my nylon-head hammer, et voila!

Now you're ready to string and knot away!

Keirsten
Etsy
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