My dad mentioned that he was a little low on formal wear for an upcoming trip and I've been on a wire-wrapping / jewelry kick lately, so I thought a tie clip might be in order. I figured a nice multi-stranded wire braid would make a pretty pattern and could be bent into the appropriate shape. I have lots of braiding experience, so I figured braiding wire would be a cinch:
I was wrong. The cross-shape here was my first attempt, in which I started with 9 or 12 strands, gave up that idea and split into three sub-braids, all of which came out fairly poorly. the straighter braid on the left was my second attempt, with similar results. I decided it was time to call in the professionals. I searched up this tutorial on Pinterest: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gI7SFuvnwG8 and used it to create the bottom braid you see here (the top is attempt #2 or #3, for comparison):
From there it was pretty smooth sailing! I bent all the loose ends in over the last wire they crossed and cut off the excess to close the ends into loops, and then formed the overall clip shape here:
Et Voila! I tried it on one of Dear Husband's ties. Overall a very successful craft project!
