You'll Need:
The studded ring - one of the first gothic accessories that one does acquire. Usually you find them while skulking around the goth-shops or around a stand. But no more! We will guide you through 6 (or 7) easy steps to make these rings for zero cost and a minimum of work!
Okay, the part of zero cost isn't quite true... Neither is the minimum work... The studs can be quite a pain to locate (if you don't want to pay through the roof for them) and real leather isn't cheap either. Of course, you could use fake leather, but it is still not free.
A piece of advice before we begin our ascend - beware of the batlings who will envy you your ring and try to pry it from your cold dead fingers!
1) Gather the stuff you need. Use a medium thick leather - the thick will be uncomfortable and the thin one curls when you try to put it on. We used a thin piece of leather, much to our regret :(
The number of studs depends on the size of the studs. We only used 3 on this one, but you could use enough to cover the leather, if you want to. The design-limitations are unlimited... Did that make sense?
Now the tricky part - measurement! We advice you to get help on this one. Doing it alone will screw-up your precision! The finger was measured approximately to 6,5cm. This is without seam allowance.
No, we didn't draw the white line, we added it in photoshop because a black pen is difficult to see on black leather. You might have better luck using some kind of gel-pen or somthing - experiment a little!
Note that we made this ring 1 cm wide. The studs are 8-9mm. Make sure that you know how you want your ring to look like, before you start cutting. This ring has a small stripe of excess leather on either side and it doesn't look too good.
Another note - we didn't have any seam allowance on this leather and it worked like a charm (yes, we experiment on our tutorials as well - happy now?). So just cut it the lenght of what you measured.
The ring itself is actually a bit loose (when it was done), even though the leather was cut exactly after the measurement. So we tell you to keep in mind that leather stretches a bit and advice you to double check your measurements!
Now comes the placement of the studs. Depending on how your studs are applied, you'll need different methods of making holes. We have tried using a punch tool, but it make to large holes. You might consider using an awl, if you have one. Otherwise, use a large needle.
Again, you have to consider if you want the studs to be close or apart. Try both ways, see what you fancy. If you want them close together, then use one hole for two studs (if your studs look like ours, that is).
Our studs has small "flippers" to secure the stud. They were not to difficult to bend, however, if you have soft nails you might consider using a small plier in your aid.
Fusing the ends together. We simply stitched them together quite roughly. We would not recommend a large needle (like the leather needle that we used), because you will be sewing close to the edge and you want your ring to be durable, yes? So use the few extra minutes it takes and fuse the ends properly!
Depending on your technique, the ends will be more or less annoing :). Try different methods - the one we used is okay, but we think that you can do better!
As you can see, we should have use the extra time on our sewing. But it works and it actually isn't too annoing to wear.
Well - the tutorial is finished! What are you waiting for? Find the leather and the studs - we know you have some! Now, get to work!
