Celtic knots wirework chain

Hello there all my lovely jewel makers, I'm Christina at CSL Designs and today I'm going to show you how to make this Celtic knot wire work chain. So we're going to be making little individual links with Celtic knots and then attaching them together that creates the full chain. So this will be really cute to use on its own for something like a bracelet or necklace, but it would also work really well alongside other Celtic designs. For instance, this Celtic wire work pendant I made recently, using the Celtic chain alongside it really makes it a nice piece. So if you want to learn how to make it, then keep watching. So all we're going to need to make our links is our wire here and this is a 0.8mm regular round copper wire that I'm using and I'm then going to be using these three pliers here to help make the links. So first of all, of course, we need some wire cutters. So I've got my flush cutters here and then I've got my tweezer nose pliers. So something like chain nose would work fine. And finally, I've got my six step bell making pliers. Now you can use round nose pliers in place of these, but I do prefer knowing exactly what size I'm going to get. So that's why I prefer to use these. So what I then prefer to do is cut a bunch of wires ready here so I can just grab them as I need them. And these are about 10 centimetres long. And for each link, I'm going to be using two of these lengths. So I grab my two lengths of wire here and I'm then going to be using my six step bell making pliers to begin with. And just with one length at a time, I'm going to place my pliers here on the wire about the midpoint. It doesn't have to be perfect, just roughly. Then I need to shape this into kind of a loop shape. So I bring the two ends around the pliers and then I make sure that one length goes over the other. It doesn't matter which one goes over and goes under. Just make sure you stay consistent so it's the same one every time that you do it though. And then bring it further down to kind of create this little teardrop shape, you could say. And again, I'm just using these pliers to then help make sure that every time I make this little shape, that it's going to be exactly the same size. So that's the first one. I'm going to grab the other length and basically repeat the exact same thing. So place the pliers roughly in the middle of the wire, bring the two ends together, make sure one crosses over the other and that it's the same one as the other one. So I tend to just always cross the left one over the right one. It's just kind of what comes natural. And make sure to do that every time, like I said. Bring them closer until we again have that teardrop shape. And we then have our two wires ready. And these little shapes that we've made, the teardrop shapes, are more or less the same size. So then we need to put our two wires together here, so we can obviously create our link. And what I'm going to do is simply kind of flip one against the other. And because we overlapped them the same way, they fit perfectly together. And the little teardrop shapes are going to sit opposite each other like this with the point to point. Then this part can be a bit fiddly, but just hold it in place the best you can with your fingers. I'm going to lay them in place and then I have a finger underneath and then I'm going to put my thumb on top and hold it in place while I then maneuver these wires into place. So I'm just going to grab, in this case starting with the bottom one, bringing it up towards the other one and overlapping the loop there. Then I'm going to take the top one and bring that down. So basically bring both of them to the opposite sides. And again, making sure that overlaps first of all the other wire, but also that loop that we made. And I'm going to make sure the overlapping point of the wires is actually within that loop. Now I can then just remove my fingers, because obviously once I'm covering it with my fingers, I can't really see much. And then we can just adjust anything. So if we need to pull any wires closer or open anything up. And again, just making sure that that overlapping point is within the loop. Then I'm going to flip it around and then put it back into place. Put my thumb on it again and basically repeat the same thing on the other side with the other links here. So bring the bottom one up, make sure it overlaps over the top and then the top one, bring that down and that overlaps the other one. And again, I have the overlapping point within that Tudor shape. And then you can kind of start to see the effect that we're going to get. Now, obviously it's not perfect yet or done. So what you can do now is adjust anything you need or any shapes or anything, how open you want this or large or how kind of closed in and tight you want it. That's completely up to you. But then, and as you can see, you can kind of still move around, but they are technically connected. So it's just a matter of kind of keeping them in the same, in the correct position there. So I have the overlapping points be within the loops on the end. Now I'm going to then grab my flush cutters and because we need to kind of get some of these wires down through, it's easy to do that if these links aren't so long. So I'm going to cut off majority of the length, basically just after the loop. So they're just slightly sticking out over. So something a bit like that. And then this, in my opinion, is far easiest, pretty much impossible to do with your fingers. So easiest to use my tweezers and pliers. I'm going to grab just the bottom one first, because obviously that's the first one that's kind of wanting to go through. Just going to bend it to go through the loop that's crossing over towards the back. So it's starting to kind of go through the loop and loop back around it. The wire there that's creating the loop. And again, nothing's going to be final yet. I'm just kind of getting things into position. Again, grab the other one just to maneuver it through the loop. So down through and then just grab it there from the back and we can and then pull it a bit further out and start to have it wrap around. You can see there towards the back and then just have a little look because we do want to make sure as we're doing this throughout to obviously check that it still looks the way we want it to. So we can adjust anything as we go. And then what you then want to do to kind of check is push. So don't push the loops together like that, because that'll open up more, but actually push the ends of the wire there. So basically pull the titer shapes there apart. Pull them or you could push the inner parts, the wires there that I'm just bending towards each other. But before I finish anything off on that side, I do like to just flip around, go to the other side and repeat the same thing. So cut down the wires to make it easier to get through. Then again, I grab the bottom one because that's the one that is crossing over the titer shape first, bring it down through and then back out towards itself. So it's starting to loop around there and then same with the other one. Keep this in place the best you can. Loop that down through and then grab it. Just need to put it through a little bit more, grab it from the back and start to pull it to the other side. And then again, have a look, see how everything looks here. And again, I'm pushing that in a path so kind of you could almost call it the knot together. So first of all, to check how it looks, see if we're happy with it, but also to make sure that it's as symmetrical as possible. And if anything needs adjusting and if you're happy with it, you can just use your pliers there to adjust anything, but otherwise it's time to start finishing off the wires. So just start on any, either the sides, it doesn't matter. I'm going to go in first of all with my flush cutters because the ends are still just a little bit too long. I just want to cut them just to the right length. Now I'd rather cut off too little because you can always cut off more, but just going to cut off a little bit more there. And then I'm going to use my tweezer nose again to basically start pushing that wire that we looped around just one at a time closer and tighter around the other wire to basically make it fastened in place. So I need to cut off a little bit more because we don't want it to be too long either. We basically want this wire to loop around the other wire and have the end of itself kind of meet back up with itself, if that makes sense. And that's what's going to also hold it in place and fasten it into the position that we want. So make sure to push it into place and then tighten that wire around the other wire there. Same with the bottom one. Go and cut off a little bit of the length to get it a bit shorter and then just start to tighten it around the wire and then have a little look. Because obviously doing this, you can also then affect the rest of it and maybe make some of the wires move. So again, if you need to adjust anything, do it while we're here before we completely finish everything off. Flip it around if you're happy with it. Just tighten that a bit more. Then flip it around. Again, make sure the knot there in the middle is in position. Now we just need to tighten these other ones. So cut off a bit more of the wire so it should hopefully be short enough that the end fits when I tighten this so it can reach up with itself. I think I just need to cut off a little bit more and then just gradually do this until it's tightened enough so it stays in place. But basically also this is how we're kind of getting rid of the ends as well. So that's that side. Go to the last side. Cut off a bit. Like I said, start with just a little bit because you can always cut off more. If you cut off too much, that's going to be a bit more of a problem. So tighten that and I can tell I need to cut off a little bit more here to make it fit better. So cut that off and then go in and tighten it. Something a bit like that. And you can then just, technically it is done, you can then just do minor adjustments if you need to. Like I said, it's best to do it throughout but because while tightening those, the wire can move around a bit. So if you need to open anything up, like any of these little kind of loops within the knot, to make it more symmetrical and streamlined, then obviously you can do that. Otherwise, this is basically your finished link. Now what we're then left with are these four short lengths of wire. Now, of course, you can just get rid of them but what I personally do like to do is basically take, again, my six-step bell making pliers and make coils with them. So just grab onto the wire there and keep bringing the wire around, making a coil. And I'm just using the small step in this case, that's obviously personal preference. And just keep going until I've done the whole length. Now I'm just going to grab my flat nose pliers because it can be a little bit hard to do the last little bit with your fingers. It's certainly a bit painful. And just bring that last little bit around. And then basically what I'm going to do with this coil is take my flush cutters and start to make jump rings. So just start from one end. Then I just want to cut off the very end of the wire first of all because that's usually always a bit straight or it doesn't have a very nice cut. Now I do also recommend that you use flush cutters for this because flush cutters will give you a flat end when you cut it with the back against the end of the wire. And that's ideally what you want for jump rings. Then I flip my pliers and basically go up one step but cut in pretty much the same place. And then here I have a jump ring. And of course you can then use those jump rings to actually also attach the links together which is what I'm going to be doing. Obviously you can attach them together however you want to. But you just keep going like this. Then you always want to cut off just a bit of that end that we just cut before with the back against the wire because the other side isn't flat. But then flip the pliers, cut in the same place but the next level up. And then I have, whoops running away from me, another jump ring. And I can just keep going like that. So basically I usually do that with these links here. So I save them and just make little coils to make jump rings. And then we have almost next to no wastage. And then I grab one of my jump rings here that I've made myself. So also the whole chain will be handmade. And then I have two links that I want to attach together. So what you'll also find on the links is there is a front and a back. So this is the front where the knot kind of looks nice and all. And the back is where you can kind of tell, still looks nice but where we kind of finished off the wires. So that's just personally what I call the front and the back. But then I'm just going to put my jump ring through one of the end loops there. And then take another link and then just make sure that I add this link in the correct direction. So basically I have the front towards my hand and the back is facing away here. So the other link I need to attach this. So they're now hanging back to back. And then we just close up the jump ring. Now you can of course leave it like this. Just close it nice and securely. But what I do think is nice as well for this design is to basically do a double connection. So just grab another jump ring. Grab the same links. And I'm just going to go through in the same direction. So through the same loop from front to back. And then through the loop in the other end or the other link from back to front. Exactly where that first jump ring is sitting. So don't want to close this up nicely. There we go. We basically have two jump rings in the same place. And it just adds a nice look but also makes it basically a bit more secure. And it's still got a nice movement. But of course like I said you can literally attach the links together however you want to. Either just jump rings like this. Or you can also make links in between with beads. And then kind of maybe alternate between just the knot, then a bead, knot, bead. That will add a bit of color as well. So that's how you can make your own Celtic knot chain. So I really hope you enjoyed this tutorial. Now if you like making your own chain I have loads more designs on my channel. So feel free to check that out. Otherwise I hope you enjoyed this. Thank you so much for watching it and I'll see you in the next one!