Flexible

Textile in any shape and form is flexible. This is a huge contrast to metal.

With crochet, I personally like to focus on the pattern created by the wire, but I’m not trying to imitate the flexibility. I want the final piece to resemble sheet metal and to hold its shape.

Here you can see what the starting point looks like in a crochet piece, when there is still “fluff” and flexibility. This is already a nice structure to use in jewellery, and a lot of jewellery is made like this, sometimes with beads and pearls added.

Very fine metal sheet is flexible too, when it is annealed. I was once playing with some foil, just folding and shaping it without any plan. It inspired me to create a similar shape with thin copper sheet. If the metal sheet is thin enough, and annealed, it’s almost like shaping a piece of thick paper.

A textile ring ‘kind of’ works. It is comfortable to wear but also short-lived – and not always practical. If I would find a way to seal it (nailpolish was not the right thing) and still keep a soft and flexible feeling… What a dream!

I have always liked the idea of mixing hard metals with soft techniques. This year, my theme for the A to Z challenge is “Metal meets textile”. From A to Z, I talk about work with metal wire, textile techniques like crochet and knitting, show some pieces I’ve been working on, share some thoughts on metal, textile and jewellery. I hope that you’ll find something of interest to you!