DIY Chain necklaces for spring

There are a lot of really cool ideas floating around the web for jewelry made with chains. Last year I made two  necklaces with nice bright spring colors both made of chains, but in completely different ways. With Mother’s Day coming up, these would make wonderful gifts for your favorite Mamma in your life! Let me tell you about them both.

The first chain necklace is quite literally a chain, but a crocheted cotton one! I discovered this pattern by Shara Lambeth when making her Voyages Beanie for a crochet-along. I worked the necklace up last summer and, like my Ball & Chain pattern, it’s a great project to take on the go with you because it’s small. I also love that it’s super lightweight, so it’s comfortable even on hot spring and summer days! (Here I’m wearing it with my Perfect Shrug.)

As you can see, it’s worked up into an actual chain, with interlocked pieces. To do this, you crochet a loop inside one of the end loops, keep working around to make a sort of tube, and then connect the two edges of the tube to make a thick chain link. This picture was when it was still a work in progress. The last loop is worked so as to connect both end loops, making a circle of chain loops.

It was pretty fun and easy to make, once you understood how to make each link, and I like that it’s modular, so that you can try it on and stop whenever it’s long enough. And if you have kids, they’ll probably love playing with the chain! You can see the details for my version of this necklace here on Ravelry. If you want to save this project to do it later on, Pin it right here!

The second necklace uses a metal chain for a base and embroidery floss is woven into the chain links to create a colorful braid. There are a ton of tutorials online for this type of necklace, but I used this one by Hello Natural (formerly known as Henry Happened). (Pin it here for future reference!)

See, it’s just a chunky chain with a big clasp and embroidery floss looped into the chain links. The original tutorial calls this an inexpensive project, but apparently these materials cost considerably more in Italy, because they weren’t so cheap for me. However, in retrospect, I realized that I could’ve spent a lot less money by using thin crochet yarn instead of embroidery floss. Oh well. Next time!

I selected about 6 skeins of embroidery floss (are those little wrapped up lengths called skeins, even if they’re not yarn? You can tell I’m not really much of an embroiderer, huh?) in different shades of green, and mixed them up into two long groups of strands. Knot the tops together and start braiding as the tutorial shows.

I prefered the look of braiding both strand bunches (one at a time) into each chain link, but then when I got about 3/4 of the way down, I realized that I didn’t have enough floss to continue that way, so I did the rest with just one bunch in each chain link. In the picture above, you can see what the front side looks like (bottom) and the back side (top).

I call this a spring necklace, but I actually wear it year round (except when it’s really cold, because the metal can feel pretty chilly on your skin).

So, there we have two great ideas for fun and funky chain necklaces! Wouldn’t they make great gifts for Mother’s Day?

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Question of the day: Do you make Mother’s Day gifts? What type of gift do you like making for this holiday? Clothing, accessories, home decor?

My mother dresses in a much more simple way than I do, so I generally make her gifts that are accessories, to jazz up her outfits. So I’ve knit or crocheted her a bunch of different scarves (like this ruffle scarf) and necklaces (like these beaded necklaces and my Ball & Chain necklace).

If you want some great ideas for your favorite lady, check out this roundup I made of 18 DIY Mother’s Day gifts made with upcycled materials!

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