Up until now, my jewelry tutorials have exclusively featured Viking style wire knitting. This time, I am using a stitch technique inspired by American Artist and Sculptor Ruth Asawa. Her wire knitted sculptures captured my imagination and made me think about wire knitting as a sculptural form for the very first time.

I watched a YouTube video where her daughter demonstrated her stitch making technique. When I saw it, I thought, “hmmmm, I can scale that down to make jewelry.” And that’s what I did.

Interesting side story, I was doing an Etsy Made in Canada market in St. John’s (before I got sick), and a woman approached my booth, seemingly captivated by some of my designs. She inquired about them and I took the opportunity to geek out about how Ruth Asawa and her amazing sculptures inspired my technique.

It was then she smiled broadly and told me she’d had the pleasure of being Ruth’s neighbour for many years in San Francisco. I was gobsmacked. Ms. Asawa is deceased, so I knew I’d never have a chance to ever meet her. But getting her neighbour’s seal of approval was the next best thing. I blinked back tears and thanked her profusely.

In my latest tutorial, I show you how to prepare your stitches using 20 gauge dead soft copper wire and a 7 mm knitting needle, and then how to construct the snowflake shaped pendant. This is a good first wire knitting project as it requires only 18 stitches.

A complete list of materials and tools needed for the project is included in the description box below the video on YouTube.