Newly Listed: Viking Knit DNA Jewelry

Back in my yoga post, I mentioned that my favorite part about yoga was having chill-ass "me time" where I could think things through and get inspiration. Well, what you see here today is a result of that inspiration!

I first picked up Viking knit six (!!) years ago, but all told I haven't used it in many projects since then. While I enjoy the repetitive nature of it—it's a great way to keep your hands busy while you're watching TV, riding in a car, or listening to a podcast—and the end result looks really nice, I couldn't think of a way to incorporate it into my STEM jewelery (STEMery?) except as a space holder; a way to lengthen a necklace (such as Avogadro's number or Big G) that would otherwise be impossibly short.

Sometime later I saw a design with small beads woven into it, and that made an impression. Then in the middle of a yoga session, I drew the connection between the impression and my work: would it possible to weave beads in a particular shape? Say, a double helix?

As of this post, I'm not entirely sure of the answer. Viking knit is a two-part process; what you see while you're working on the thing is not really what you get by the end, after you pull everything through a draw plate a few times. So far I have two prototypes.

Copper Viking knit necklace inspired by DNA

Copper Viking knit bracelet inspired by DNA

While they didn't turn out exactly how I envisioned them, they're still lovely pieces! So I'm offering both in the shop at a reduced price. They're still experiments, after all. Educational pieces.

I've done a little bit of searching around and I don't think anyone has tried to do what I'm trying to do. If they have, they're not writing blog posts or tutorials about it. Unfortunately, these two projects used up the last of my copper wire, so things will have to wait a bit!