The reverse wrapping technique is a variation on the basic technique that you would use if the top of your petals will roll back or roll down, and the back of your petals will be highly visible. It is a way to hide the metal wraps at the bottom of the petal. For example, if you are making a rose and the sepals will not be pressed against the bottom of the petals, the back will show. Many times you will be able to use color matched wires, but even they can show more metal than you would ideally like.
If you are making a white rose out of gold wire, be aware that exposed and stretched gold wire may fade over time. Having a lot of visible wire getting darker will spoil the pristine look of your rose.
We’ll start with a rose petal, round bottom, and pointed top. Start your petal as usual, with the basic row on the basic wire, plus the basic wire loop on the bottom. Make Row 2, which is the first row that goes from the bottom of the petal to the top, and wrap it as usual, at a 45-degree angle to achieve the point. Flip the piece over. Load all the beads you will need for Row 3. When you get to the basic loop with the spool wire, don’t wind it front to back as usual. Bring the loaded spool of wire around the back of the piece and wrap it from back to front, in a straight line to achieve the round shape as usual.
Continue with the petal, wrapping all the top rows (or even rows) from front to back, and all the bottom rows (or odd rows) from back to front. This will give your petal a “right side” at the top and a “wrong side” at the bottom, both on the same side of the petal. On the other side, you will have the reverse: a “wrong side” at the top and a “right side” at the bottom. Make sure to bend the cut top basic wire to the “wrong side” to remove a messy cut wire showing on the “right side” of the finished flower.
If you want, you can make all the petals of a rose this way. If it is a dense rose, which has many layers of petals and only the back of an outer layer of the larger petals will be seen, you can use this technique for that outer layer only.
I suggest using this technique only on the rounded ends of the petals, mainly because it is easier, and a wrap for a rounded petal end shows less wire by definition – there is no diagonal wrap, which uses more wire. If your flower has petals that are rounded on both the top and bottom, that’s the easiest of all and you can wrap the top or bottom of the petal upside down.
When you are assembling your flower, position these petals with the “right side” of the bottom facing the outside of your flower. When you roll the tops of the petals down, you will see that the outer surface of the flower shows very little wrapped wire.
