Cabochon Woven Wire Pendant

Use painter’s tape, or a tape measure to find the circumference of your stone. Mine measures 2". [You can use a larger stone but you will need more wire of both gauges.]
Cut 3 pieces of 20g wire - 2 at 8" in length and 1 at 12" in length. Use nylon jaw pliers to straighten all three wires. Mark the center point of each of these three wires. For mine, that's at 4 inches and 6 inches. Since my stone has a circumference of 2 inches I will start my weaving about 1 inch to the left of the center, so I've made marks there as well. If your stone is larger, you may have to adjust where you start your weaving. Hold the three base wires (20g) in the small clamp, lining them up at the marks you made. Be sure to keep the longest base wire at the bottom of the stack.

Take the 28g and wrap it around the bottom base wire twice. Leave a tail of weaving wire about 2" in length. We will use this wire later.

Now grab that extra wire 28g wire we cut in the beginning. We are going to use this wire to wrap together the two inside bail wires. Bring this wire behind the outside base wire and wrap it up and around the middle wire. Now your wire should be in the back again. Bring the wire under the two middle wires of your bail wires. Wrap around these two wires three times. You can now trim off that wire.

Starting on the left two bail wires make sure that you mirror the pattern that you did on the right. Leave a small tail and wrap around the inner most wire 5 times and then wrap around the two wires twice. Next wrap 5 times around the top wire 5 times. Continue this pattern 10 times. (Shorter if you want a smaller bail.) End with 5 wraps on the outside wire. Trim off the weaving wire where you started. Leave the end of your weaving wire attached. We will be using this wire to weave the four bail wires together.

With the attached weaving wire we are going to connect the four base bail wires together. Wrap around the two bail wires twice, come under and then over the other two bail wires and wrap around those twice. Go under the top two wire and wrap around twice. Then under and over the bottom two base wires twice. End with three single wraps around the bottom wire only. This should hold these wires together nicely.

Place your pendant on the front of your frame. Make sure that your frame extends out further than the cab. Use a small amount of painter’s tape or quilter’s tape to secure your cab to the frame. Starting on either side of your pendant grab two of the ends of the bail wires and bring them around from the back to the front. I find it easiest to firmly hold the cab to the frame with my thumb and index finger. This next part may test your patience but hang in there. Go slowly begin to form small spirals, one inside the other that will serve as prongs to hold the stone. Trim the wires shorter to make it easier to work them, and make small movements as you go along. You can slightly adjust the spirals in the wire as you go but try not to make sharp bends. You can use a round nose pliers or just your hands to make a spiral with these wire that will sit on the sides on the front of your frame. Trim and excess when you've got them the way you want them.

Remember that “U” shaped length of wire at the bottom of your pendant? Cut the bend off at the bottom, leaving two separate wires. We will use each of these wires to make another spiral on each side of the pendant. Make sure that you trim the ends of your wires. Since you aren’t working on the bail at this time you can remove the crochet hook if you would like.