Learning about String Art

It seems that string art jewelry is showing up everywhere just this week. Maybe it's something in the water. I spent my jewelry time this week experimenting with it, and am sharing 3 of the 5 pendants I made. The others are just as nice, or possibly nicer, but they already have new homes, and I'll get their photos for my records later.

Here are some of the things I learned:

• Nice quality sewing or machine embroidery thread works really well for this technique.
• Spooled thread is easier to manage than embroidery floss, regardless of what the tutorials all say.
  
• Variegated thread is lots of fun to work with and gives really interesting effects.
• The direction of the coil makes a difference in the way the thread lies and has a BIG impact on how easy it is to get it to look nice and stay in place.
• Because you are wrapping in several different directions, sometimes the coil direction will be against you, and you'll just have to learn to work with it.
  
• Generous application of sealant is important to durability.
• The tension on the final wrap before the knots is critical.
• Getting the coil uniformly stretched without wobbles is the very hardest part -- still working on that one.
  
• String art is still fun, 45 years after freshman geometry class.

I'll be experimenting more next week because I bought a few spools of thread on Friday and can't wait to try them. I also bought some steel wire for frames, to see how that works. The dark annealed finish is interesting and should contrast nicely with the gloss of the threads.

Technical details: 18g hardware store copper wire for the frame, 22g colored craft wire and/or niobium wire for coils, 28g copper wire for the herringbone bails, Sulky brand #30 mercerized cotton sewing thread in both solid and variegated for the string weaving.

Are any of you playing with this? Want to talk about it in the comments?

Thanks for looking, and don't forget to look at all the beautiful stuff over at Year of Jewelry.