How To Make Wire and Fiber Jewelry Pendants

I have just held my first workshop on how to make fiber and wire pendants and it was a real treat for me. I've devised a simple way to weave wire with what I call a "portable loom" that you can get at any hardware store. The students all picked it up immediately which was great.

It always pleases me to see my students pick up and learn something so quickly. Truth is, I spend many hours working and re-working workshops and tutorials specifically because I want students to get it. I really want to encourage them to fall in love with wire jewelry making and so I do work hard to ensure that whatever I'm teaching them, whether it be by tutorial or workshop, it's as easy as possible for them to learn the new wire jewelry technique that I've created. This workshop helped confirm that what I'm doing is working. Sometimes things just don't get any better, really.

All workshops are different because of the varied size of the class and the personalities of the students. I always enjoy my teaching regardless of the mix of individuals. The majority of them are rather lovely folks with a genuine interest in learning a new wire jewelry technique. Often there's a complainer in the mix and I do my best to diffuse any negativity that they bring into the workshop. I work hard to appease them so as not to dampen the enthusiasm of the other workshop participants. This generally works well for me and for the overall smoothness and up beat tone that I want to encourage in these classes.
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This particular workshop on wire and fiber woven pendants was again, a real treat for me because all of the participants were upbeat people who responded well to color and were very interested in learning how to utilize it in their jewelry making. The class was also smaller than I'm used to so it gave me the opportunity to get to know the students a little which is always a benefit. If I can spend some time with each student, then I can get to know more about their work and their leanings and even provide some suggestions or guidance.

So being able to spend time with the students here was a lovely experience for me. They all came up with some interesting ideas and openly contributed to the entire group. That doesn't always happen and I'm always grateful when it does. Since this was a brand new wire jewelry technique, everyone seemed to get into the further exploration of it and we all just seemed to go into this wonderful, creative space together. Those are the best kinds of workshop experiences any artist can have: joint creative juices just flow so naturally and wonderfully.