Wednesday, December 14, 2011

Knit an I-cord Necklace

I wanted a thicker cord to mount some cool antique style rings into a necklace, and I could not find a thick one ready made... so... I did find some hemp style cording (soft leather cording would work too), and used a three stitch I-cord to knit the necklace.
Below are photos (sorry some a bit blurry) of three stitch I-cord. Cast on three stitched (I used 4mm -US6 double point needles - you only need two of them). Knit the first row. WITHOUT turning, slide the three stitches from the left tip of the right needle.....
to the right tip of the same needle. This needle now becomes the left needle ...
and you start knitting from that needle. The feed string will close the tube from the back (like magic)...
Continue repeating this one step over and over until full length required. Cast off three, and finish by sewing clasps to the ends (I did this in dark thread so you can see) You may want to do this after the beads are loaded if the beads will not slide over the clasp that you are using. My bar and ring work, because the bar side can slide through the rings.

Here is a close up of the cord, with some extra hemp in a contrast colour wrapped to stop all the rings from sliding down to the center.

Photo of the last few rings before loading them on the cord...

There, you have knit a necklace!

7 comments:

  1. Thank you! Clearest directions on making an I cord ever!!!

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  2. Can this be done with more than 3 stitches. Have tried with 5 or 10 but it doesn't seem to work.

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  3. I cord works only with three or maybe four stitches. Larger than that you need to knit on four double points in the round....
    Hope that helps
    chris

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  4. I do I-cord to finish a circular stitched hat after decreasing to about 8 stitches. Thread through to draw up, then do about 2 1/2" of 4 stitch I-cord, fold down and sew back to the center to form a cute loop at the very top of the hat.

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  5. That is so cool! I've found so many amazing patterns on your blog-I've been trying to find yarn strong enough for necklaces, like you. I'm going to have to find me some hemp cord. This necklace looks AMAZING!!

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