haven't had time to type anything up.. i'll update that later. for now just a big old image of some photos i took last night. it's a checker cut diamond shape tourmaline briolette instead of a flat heart shape one. technique should be the same though.

oh.. and about how the chain manages to get into the loop partway through the wrap? i messed up.. and had to rip the wrap apart and remember to hook the chain up the 2nd time around. i hate it when i do that!

<b>Start here:</b>

1. select your beautiful briolette. med/lg tourmalines and aquamarines are quite hardy. tiny sapphires, kyanite, and other stones w/ tiny drill holes near the tip of the briolette are not.

2. select your wire. i've found that i really like working with 14k GF 28g round DS wire. it soft, maleable, and doesn't look too "chunky". it works great with small stones and med size stones, especially if they have really small drill holes. my days of attempting to shove 24g and 26g wire through an expensive gem are over! 28g also looks great with small stones, and makes stones look larger. 28g does not always work well on large briolettes (10x10mm and up) with large drill holes - it's hard to wrap and the wrap doesn't always stay in place.

3. bend on end of your wire, i use chain nose flat pliers.

4. center it over your briolette and bend it back to it's straight up and over to one side of the center. don't use the absolute center, because you need to leave room for the other end of the wire.

5. bend the other wire over. if you're using 24g or 26g, especially if it's half-hard wire, you'll probably have to get the bend started w/ your pliers. get as close as you can to the stone w/oo scratching it, and bend the wire up about 45 degrees, then finish the bend w/ your fingers. on really small and fragile stones, you may want to you mostly your fingers and fingernails when bending the wire at the ends of the holes.

6. bend the wire up, so it's flush against the other end. i don't know why i labelled it as a 90 degree bend, i guess cause it's 90 degrees to the briolette hole

7. adjust the wires so they are on the same plane

8. i like to check which side of the briolette looks better. this side will be the "good" side that will face outward. i then bend the wire 90 degrees towards the "good" side, about 2mm up from the other bend (this measurement is for 28g wire only)

9. trim the other end of the wire flush w/ the top of the bend. cut it too short and you may have problems with that side slipping out of your wrap as you wrap, giving you a lopsided and crooked wrap. <i>very annoying</i> and i usually end up just ripping it all apart if that happens.

10. grab like so w/ round nose pliers and start your loop

11. another angle

12. to make a nice round loop, i find it is easier to flip your pliers over and finish the loop that way.

13. finish loop. i like to make sure that the finish loop end contains the cut wire between itself and the start of the loop. that way the loop will be centered over the two wires

14. admire and adjust your loop if it's too big or lopsided, not centered or leaning to one side.

15. double check if everything looks good

16. grab the top of the loop w/ you round nose or flat nose pliers (i have masking tape to keep them from marring the wire). because i work w/ very small stones and wire, it's often impossible for me to hold the loop w/ a chain nose. i probably need better chain nose pliers anyways.

17. start wrapping. firmly, but gently. make sure you wrap the top of the other end of the wire as well, it's okay if it stick out a little bit. if it's too short, make sure you get it on the second wrap around.. otherwise your loop may end up crooked. you want to secure the other wire so it won't move..

18. as you wrap down the briolette, i generally flip the briolette over and regrab it with my pliers, it makes the wrapping a bit easier unless i'm in a hurry or lazy. as you wrap around the "shorter" wire, don't use too much force, or as i've found it'll tend to bend the wire inward while often pulling the other side outward. you then end up w/ a completely lopsided wrap, and i haven't found anyway to fix that without starting over.

19. once you get past the top few wraps you may find that it's easier wrapping with your fingers.. just push the wire around the croners and make sure each wrap is flush with the next. depending on the chubbiness of your briolette your wrap may start developing a scooped curvature. that's okay, just let it curve and keep your wraps flush.
i've found that using the pliers to hold the top loop while wrapping the bottom part will sometimes exert too much pressure on one side of the wrap giving you a lopsided wrap at best, and pulling apart at worst.

20. alright, when you've wrapped it to the area you like, do the last wrap around the front, trying to make sure it's nicely lined up w/ the bead and not crooked. although sometimes you can't help it, the drill hole is just so off or the bead itself isn't perfectly symmetrical.

21. now start that last wrap around the backside, you're not completing this wrap, just to find out how much wire you're going to need to make sure your cut end of wire doesn't end up too short and on the "front" side of your briolette

22. so it's like a half wrap around the "back"

23. while holding the wrap on the back side of the bead, gently unwrap your last front wrap about halfway.
in this image the "front" of the briolette faces to the right.

24. here things get dicey. you estimate to the best of your ability how much to cut off, you know it's going to be after that last bend, but depending on the chubbiness of your briolette you will leave different lengths of extra wire.

25. it's okay if you leave a bit "extra" and it ends up part away around the back. ideally i want it to end up slight over he back, ending up on the side is okay if i can make sure it doesn't stick out. for the perfect wrap i like to be able to have the end of the wire tuck right into the drill hole of the briolette, conveniently hiding the end and it'll never get caught on anything!

26. after you've cut the end, use the round nose pliers to curl the end of the wire around so when you close the wrap, it'll ideally "grip" the stone. i developed this method when i used to wrap with half hard wire because i always had a lot of trouble getting the end of the wraps to "stay"
you will also have to bend the middle of the wire slightly too, to sort of "precurve" it to the briolette. This was because it was often impossible for me to try to curve the end of half hard wire after having cut it and trying to push it against the stone w/ my fingers. it can still be tough sometimes w/ dead soft sterling silver, so i just precurve it to save me the grief. note that this will shorten the end of your wire so that it may not "grip" the briolette around where you had originally thought it would.

27. top view. the wrap is ready to be closed.

28. i use my fingers and gently from the other end (not the cut end), push it across the stone and the wrap sort of "snaps" shut. in theory anway =)
more often i have to pull a bit on the end w/ a flat nose and pull the tucked end over the side of the briolette and then push the entire thing closed w/ my finger. don't use too much force

also watch out because sometimes you may have curled the end too much and you might have to uncurl it a little bit to get it over the end. otherwise with all the pushing your wire will cave in in the middle and you'll have an annoying little "dent" on the bottom-most wrap, and on the "front" of all places.

29. heh, i actually got it in the hole on this one!

30. close up or wrap. you can neaten up the wrap with your fingernails, but don't play or push it around too much. it can make a mess and it becomes impossible to fix if you start pushing wires out of place or over each other.

well, that's it. i hope this lengthy description helps people out. there are many ways to wrap a briolette and i plan to try some of the other methods i've seen. let me know if anyone tries this and if it works for them. this is just the method i've developed over the past few months that i've started beading. i don't know if it's a good way and i don't know if perhaps i'm trying to make the wraps too perfect or maybe i'm just crazy and now people will know why it would take me 5 freaking minutes to wrap one briolette =).