Another Vote for Tornado Crimps

Ever since the Christmas in July/August sale, all rosaries in my Etsy shop have been ones made with tornado crimps. Or so I thought. When I was pulling the older ones out of commission, I ran across one that surprised me. I'd thought it was one of my earliest rosaries, but it was clearly made with tornado crimps (it's easy to tell which kind of crimp has been used just by looking at it). I shrugged and put it down to my poor sense of time. I'd evidently made the rosary more recently than I'd thought, so it stayed in the shop.

Then last week, when I was packing up rosaries for a craft show, that rosary fell apart. I was shocked - out of the couple of hundred rosaries I'd made with tornado crimps, none had ever come apart (that I know of)! I looked more closely at the rosary and realized that its crimps had been half-and-half. It had originally been made with old-style crimps, but then must have had the stem reattached with tornado crimps. It was those on the stem I'd seen when deciding to keep the rosary in the shop. It was, of course, one of the old-style crimps that had come loose. I feel better now, although it still means I'll have to completely restring the rosary - using all tornado crimps this time.

Here's what the rosary looked like before its demise - and pretty much what it will look like again after I restring it: