Southwestern Style Sterling Silver Necklace

Step 9 Decorative wrapping

Now we need to wrap the chain. I used smallish (4.5″) lengths of 20 ga sterling silver (dead soft) wire. The wrap is just held on by tension, but that seems to be sufficient for ordinary wear. I try nonetheless to wrap the wire over itself when I start on a dogbone, then clip the wire and stuff the other end into the center of the wrap. This way the wearer isn't going to get poked and there is less chance an end will get caught on something and either unravel itself or a sweater or something. Repeat for each dogbone. I also flattened the smaller links a little bit just to have more consistency in terms of diameter of the necklace.