I've been wanting to make long, dangly, rainbow earrings for a while and finally came up with a design. These rainbow earrings are made by threading embroidery floss through dainty chains hanging at different lengths. I've made this using red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple, and pink but you could use any color combination you wanted. You could also probably get some fun designs with variegated threads.

In this picture I'm wearing the earrings with my Rainbow Chain Necklace. They seem to match well :)

Instructable 337

Step 1: Supplies

Supplies:

Embroidery Floss in the colors you want
Dainty Chain - I used silver but I've been having issues with that lately, so I recommend stainless surgical steel if you can
Jewelry pieces - ear wires and jump rings - it can be hard to find a jump ring that is small enough to fit through the dainty chain so you may have to consider a strong clear/nylon thread instead to group them

Tools:

Collapsible Eye Needle
Jewelry Pliers
Scissors
Tweezers or handy hands, really anything you can use to help you hold the chain while working on your project will help
Fray Check

*Links are Amazon Associates Links

Step 2: Straighten Threads

To start, I found it best to work with threads that are flat and not kinked. So if your threads are kinked as the green one on the bottom, wet it and lay it out flat to dry.

Step 3: Weaving Technique

Since I'm working with such small pieces, I wanted to give you a larger example.

As you can see, what you'll be doing is threading through one loop, skip the next one, thread back through the next loop, skip the next, thread through the next, etc. Over and over until you have the length you need.

I didn't do every loop because I was working with such dainty chain I didn't think every look was needed and it doing every other saves you half the time.

----------------------------------

To start, I chose how long I would like each color by deciding on the longest and shortest, and then evening out how long the ones in the middle would be, so in inches I had:

Pink 1”
Purple 1.66"
Blue 2.32"
Green 2.98"
Yellow 3.64"
Orange 4.3"
Red 5”

These are the exact measurements, but I was more loose when I did it. I also did this in reverse switching the colors so I could see how it looked with pink long and red short.

Step 4: Start Threading

To get started, I took a single long strand of embroidery floss and threaded it through the end of the chain (I didn't pre-cut the chain, I didn't want to be working with 1" worth of dainty chain, so I found it easier to leave it and then cut it to length after threading through the thread).

With this single strand I tied it to the end so I had equal lengths of thread on each side because I then brought these together to thread through the chain.

As shown previously, now thread back and forth through every other chain loop until you have the length you want.

I recommend starting with the shortest color as you are going to double up to make it easier on you.

Step 5: Next Color (same Strand)

As I just mentioned, I wanted to do two colors per chain length to make this easier to put on a dump ring later, so how I did it was, I finished off the first color and knotted it.

Then I measured down the length of chain for the next color*, so for the first color it would be 1" and the second color (here orange) I measured about 1.66" and tied on the thread as I did for the first. Now I threaded back and forth back towards the other color and knotted leaving one chain loop between the colors.

With things tied tied, I put on fray check (or you could use super glue if you trust yourself) and trim the thread. Be careful it doesn't unravel or you'll go insane.

*I did this technique where I threaded them towards each other so the knot would be up by the ear wire and not hanging down obvious at the end.

Step 6: Repeat for Other Colors

Now repeat this for all the colors. As I said, I grouped them and as I didn't have an even amount, I groupled them started with the smallest and then the longest 5" one was by itself.

Once you have the colors, carefully thread them on a jump ring through that center loop you left empty for each pair, and then the last chain for the one by itself. I put them in rainbow order, which was also length order.

With all of them grouped on a jump ring, put it on an earring and you're done.