New Knitting Tool: DIY Row Chain Jewelry

 Working on the sleeves of the sweater I knew I had to make regular decreases for the hem and increases for the sleeve.  Increases and decreases are always a bear for me to remember at the right time. I had seen some absolutely gorgeous row chain jewelry online and thought I could make my own,

Since Hobby Lobby has just opened in our town (!!!!) I went  over and purchased three little packages of jewelry findings--small jump rings, pretty good sized split rings, and lobster closures. I already had the jewelry tools sitting on my desk for the past year and a half waiting, waiting, waiting.  Finally I used them.

Very handy tools to use for other things besides jewelry work, I might add.

Here is my plain row chain jewelry in use.  It works great!  The idea of putting the lobster clasp on the end is so I know which end I am working toward.  I could not find the number beads at either Hobby Lobby or Michaels so I left them off and used the lobster. I can always add them if I run into them somewhere else. Those number beads would certainly make these row chains foolproof!  Now I have to count rings each time and check to make sure I am moving the chain in the right direction.

This makes me happy and confident about increases and decreases.

By the way, I first heard of doing this while reading The Philosopher's Wool book on Fair Isle Sweaters Simplified.  In one of the chapters early on Ann mentioned making a chain though she used scrap yarn to make her loops.  It caught my attention then but I did nothing about it.  Now when I was doing an important Fair Isle project that I wanted to be successful I carried out the making of the chain with jewelry findings.