Anybody here anymore?

mjsanta08 · #1 Dec 8, '11, 10:06 am

Nobody has posted anything for a while, so I thought I would try to start a thread.
I have been making knotted twine rosaries for almost a year now. I use #36 twine from an online source. I use black, blue and white. I can make a knotted cross if I need to. I also make single decade bracelets that slip on and off with a central knot from #18 twine in same colors.
I have begun making mission rosaries as well as the ranger rosaries for the troops. I even started chain link rosaries; I can get most of the parts from local retailers.
I have made twine rosaries with metal beads (knot between each bead). They take several hours but are real nice. The priest at my church pays me to make these for him, along with bracelets with beads. All twine rosaries and bracelets I give away, along with the mission rosaries. Chain link rosaries I give away or ask for enough to cover the parts.
Anyone have any special place they get their supplies?
What do you do with the rosaries you make?

-Michael

SurlyMermaid · #2 Dec 14, '11, 10:32 am

Hey!

I bought a $4 chain rosary kit from WalMart. I also bought some jump rings, eye pins, beads, etc. to make more. We'll see how this goes!

mjsanta08 · #3 Dec 14, '11, 11:14 am

Walmart, really? That's kinda cool. I'm going to look the next time I go. Is it your first rosary?

SurlyMermaid · #4 Dec 15, '11, 5:36 am

Yup. Unbelievable WalMart had this! It was in the craft section with the jewelry kits. This is going to be my first rosary. I have some beads I'm going to use instead and I have additional eye pins, jump rings, etc. to make more!

I'm going to try and start it today.

Wish me luck!!

Maid2loveJesus · #5 Jan 20, '12, 3:00 am

Hello. I'm a new member to CAF and happy to find this group among so many others. I love making rosaries! I began to learn how just last year. I first started with the twine rosaries and now trying to make chain rosaries.

I have found some wonderful shops for beads but have to purchase all the crucifixes and centerpieces online. I can find no shop in my area that offer those. Although last year I did find a lovely Blessed Virgin Mary centerpiece at Hobby Lobby and a small crucifix. Since then I haven't seen any more there. I must have bought the last ones. I love Lewis and Co. and when they have a sale I love them even more!!!

I have given away some rosaries and kept a few of my favorites. I would like to learn how to make them better than I do. I have a hard time getting the loops in the eyepins straight.

I have yet to learn how to make twine rosaries with beads. I think I'll try that next. It took me forever to make a knotted cross. My biggest trouble with knotted crosses is mine tend to lose their shape a bit. The twine becomes loose and have to be tightened again which is hard to do with only a burnt nub to grasp but with pliers it can be done. Is there something to do to keep the knotted crosses from getting loose and getting that bent out of shape look? When I make them I make them as tight as I can and only cut and burn the edges as short and tight against the twine as I can, but within a few weeks, the cross looks loose and misshaped.

mjsanta08 · #6 Jan 20, '12, 10:40 am

You can use clear nail polish, I have used super glue. I tend to put a crucifix on them now, metal or plastic.
I was doing good with the chain link when I was making two a week, but I stopped for a while. I made two in the last two days but they did not come out as nice and even as I would like.

I managed to make a lasso rosary that could be unclipped into two separate rosaries. It was for a friends wedding.

Glad to see someone else on here.

Maid2loveJesus · #7 Jan 20, '12, 8:55 pm

Thanks for the tips mjsanta08. I feel silly. I don't know why I didn't think of using glue.

I'd love to see your rosaries. Please share if you ever put the pics up.

I'd like to try doing a lasso rosary also. That's a wonderful idea for a wedding gift! I have a friend with an anniversary coming up. I think I'll try making one for her and her husband. Thanks for the idea

I've been trying to find a place that sells twine in pastel colors and also soft twine. I'd like to make some chaplets for my daughter and her friends and they love light pinks, purples, greens, etc... Does anyone here know where I can find some twine like that?

dchris · #8 Jan 21, '12, 3:19 am

I thought I posted here yesterday, but I don't see my post, so I must not have submitted the response.

Anyway, I love to do twine knotted rosaries, and have been making them for about 8 years now. I have a friend who is a Franciscan Friar, and he gives them to the local Catholic high school students who graduated.

Quote:

Originally Posted by Maid2loveJesus

I've been trying to find a place that sells twine in pastel colors and also soft twine. I'd like to make some chaplets for my daughter and her friends and they love light pinks, purples, greens, etc... Does anyone here know where I can find some twine like that?

I use to get my supplies from a place called FNT, however, they are out of business now. I still have some supplies left, and am looking at this website http://twinebydesign.blogspot.com/ for ordering. They have pinks and purples, and other kinds of variegated colors.

One thing I use to singe the ends is a wood cutting tool. Picked one up at Michaels craft store for about $10. Really easy to make the ends look nice.

I posted a couple of pics of what I have created with twine and regular beads.

Peace!

mjsanta08 · #9 Jan 21, '12, 5:59 am

Dchris, the only thing I notice I do different with my knotted twine rosaries is I make one extra knot to put the crucifix on. I know most of the instructions for them show to use the final pater knot with it.

Maid - I haven't figured out how to get my pictures the right size.

dchris · #10 Jan 21, '12, 6:07 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjsanta08

Dchris, the only thing I notice I do different with my knotted twine rosaries is I make one extra knot to put the crucifix on. I know most of the instructions for them show to use the final pater knot with it.

Yes, I use the last Our Father knot as the last knot to put on the Crucifix. I am kind of OCD when making them as well. I have to make sure the knots are EXACTLY the same space between them!

mjsanta08 · #11 Jan 21, '12, 6:50 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by dchris

Yes, I use the last Our Father knot as the last knot to put on the Crucifix. I am kind of OCD when making them as well. I have to make sure the knots are EXACTLY the same space between them!

Im the same way, I try my best to match them up. Do you measure them in any way?

dchris · #12 Jan 21, '12, 6:56 am

I sort of eyeball at first, using my fingertips to fit in between the Hail Mary knots. Use my thumb to separate the Our Father knots. Then the next set of knots, I hold up to the first set, to see if they match up. And I continue to do that with the other decades. When I finish more than one, I can hold one complete rosary up to another, and they pretty much match perfectly!

Like I said, I'm a bit OCD!

Maid2loveJesus · #13 Feb 2, '12, 9:01 am

Quote:

Originally Posted by mjsanta08

Dchris, the only thing I notice I do different with my knotted twine rosaries is I make one extra knot to put the crucifix on. I know most of the instructions for them show to use the final pater knot with it.

Maid - I haven't figured out how to get my pictures the right size.

mjsanta08, I look forward to when you do.

Have you tried copying your pics one at time into paint (program on most computers) and then you can adjust the size and save it on desktop? That's how I have to work around my pictures when putting them in emails. I also save them as jpg.

Depending on the version of paint you have, you can change the size on the home tab using "resize" and what I do is change the horizontal and vertical to 50 and click enter. If that doesnt' make it small enough I just do that again...I highlight the "100" in each box and replace them with 50. On the older versions of paint, I think you can find the resize under "view". This may be clear as mud. I'm technically challenged. This is the only way I know how to shrink pictures.

I look forward to seeing your work.

oldoak · #14 Feb 12, '12, 1:59 am

Greetings!

I'm beginning to do something adventurous: I'm starting to make my own rosary components.

It all began when I started to get requests for saints for which there aren't any rosary centers commonly available (except, perhaps, for those expensive sterling silver and gold centers). So, after examining a few color centers to get the idea, I purchased a piece of nickel silver (subsequently I've been using copper, which is easier to work with). I sawed myself a blank center, had a public domain image printed on quality paper at Fedex office, cut out the image, and (after many not so successful attempts) made an epoxy dome over the image using Ice Resin.

That center was destined for a commercial Pardon crucifix, but my next made-from-scratch rosary (of a beatified founder of a teaching order, for one of my relatives who is a teacher) was made of copper, and I had to make the crucifix. I made a stylized corpus out of brass and copper wire, fused the corpus together, and then braised the corpus to a cross cut of 20ga copper sheet. To make sure the crucifix and the center aged at the same rate (since copper does develop a patina), I coated the crucifix (and the back of the center, on which I had stamped with metal letter stamps the words "Pray for us") with a thin layer of Ice Resin to seal it. Since I wasn't happy with any of the copper chain I saw available, I also made the chain (making chain from wire is easy. It's just tedious.)

My current project (the first made-from-scratch not for someone in particular, but simply because I want to make it) is a copper and malachite Saint Alphonsus Liguori rosary. That's because my rosary making ability is a temporary gift -- like St. Alphonsus I have arthritis, I'm in a wheelchair, and I have no idea how long my hands will hold up to this (I have "swans neck" finger deformities, and I tore a sagittal band two years ago making wire rosaries. If I tear it again, it may be The End for any of this). And, though I don't believe any of the copper heals arthritis and malachite is a healing crystal hokum, I have a fondness for symbolism like that, in the same way I appreciate other traditional associations and mythologies, like birthstones. In the planning stages, also, is a copper rosary of "my guy", Saint Dunstan (patron of metalworkers). Until I made myself a new bench with a storage hutch about a year ago, a picture of "my guy" stood watch above my workbench.

Anyone who wants to get adventurous, but not quite so adventurous, can get center blanks from St Joseph's Mail Order rosary supply (listed in their menu under "DIY blanks"). These blanks have a rim and so are easier to dome with resin, and some of their blanks come with stick-on domes (making it very easy to make one's own center). They have corpuses, too, to turn a plain cross into a rosary crucifix (wood is an obvious option, but I've gotten nice results gluing corpuses to gemstone crosses matching the beads used in a rosary)

mjsanta08 · #15 Feb 12, '12, 1:58 pm

That's dedication. Takes real skill. I don't think I could do that. I got a wire kit and am having issues making the chain links.