Chain maille jewellery for a friend

A couple of My creative space posts ago, I blogged about some chain maille I was working on. I made a necklace and matching earrings for a very dear friend of mine who was taking early retirement.



This is a variation on the Byzantine weave and has additional rings on each side. I think it worked really well. I didn't make a full necklace. I personally find them slightly uncomfortable to wear. So I made 8 inches of chain and used a length of silver fancy-link chain to make up the rest of the necklace.



I was very pleased with the finished pieces and my friend was delighted with her leaving present. I quite like this weave and might have to make another one for myself sometime soon.

My creative space

A slightly early My Creative Space post this week. I wanted to be sure I didn't miss it like last week! Doh! There are a few projects on the go in my space right now. The most pressing is this one.



A very dear colleague and friend of mine is taking early retirement and she finishes this week. I wanted to make her something nice and since she likes jewellery, I thought I'd make her a chain maille necklace with matching earrings. I don't know if there is a name for this particular weave ... it's a Byzantine weave variant. The accent rings are smaller in diameter than the silver rings and there's a single accent ring locking the box together at the top and the bottom - forming a little cross of sorts.

Visit other wonderful creative spaces around the world here at the home of Our Creative Spaces.

Have a creative day, friends.

A bit of chain maille before the sewing

I have a few sewing projects I want to finish off soon. There is also one major sewing project that I need to start which will probably take me an entire year to do. But before all that, I want to share a bit more chain maille with you.

Here are a pair of Kingscale bracelets I finished recently. One's in turqouise, gold and silver. The other is in turqouise, gold and black.



What do you think?



Which do you prefer?

I think the sun must be tired after working so hard over the weekend. It's gone away for a bit of a rest today and left us with an overcast and slightly chilly day to contend with. Nevermind. I hope it comes back soon.

Hope it's sunny where you are, friends.

Chainmaille watch

The chainmaille bug just won't let me go! Recently I made myself this purple and silver half dragonback bracelet ....



Then I thought the half dragonback chain might work well with a watch face I picked up not so long ago at a craft show. The watch face came from a beading shop. I had some pink anodised aluminium rings going spare so I used those with the silver bright aluminium rings to make two short chains.



I linked up each chain to the watch and used a 2 strand slide clasp as a closure. I really like these slide clasps. Just tug on both mushroom ends at once, and the clasp will slide apart into two pieces. I think this type of clasp works well for bracelets. It locks snugly for a sleek and secure fastening.



Pretty, don't you think?

Sewing is next on the projects list as I quite fancy making a Sis Boom Jamie dress. Sara over at Sew Sweetness is hosting a Jamie dress sew-along and I rather like the idea of a new dress for the summer. No idea what it would look like on me - but I'll have a go at it anyway.

Have a great day, friends.

Half dragonback in silver and gold.

I finished this half dragonback bracelet in silver and gold recently. A friend of mine had asked me to make it for her.



I like the gold and silver combination.



I have decided I need more of these in my life ... maybe a silver and pink one for myself. Or silver and violet .... hmmmm.



I seriously love this weave - it's substantial and feels wonderful when worn. As it's made from bright aluminium rings, it's light and ever so easy to wear.

Have a fantastic week ahead, friends.

Half dragonback bracelet finished

I started this with full intentions of making it a dragonback bracelet. But I decided to skip the last step which was adding the final row of rings on the back through the middle. Due to the size of my rings and probably the aspect ratio of the rings too, the last row would have made the bracelet really stiff. I liked the slinkiness at the half completed stage. So it's staying as a half dragonback. Each side of the bracelet looks slightly different from the other. This side has a curved edge.



You can't see it very well in the next picture but the other side has a ridge of rings on each edge. I used blue anodised aluminium rings down the spine and plain bright aluminium rings elsewhere. These are 5mm internal diameter rings made from 1.29mm gauge (16AWG) wire. It's got a slide clasp as a fastener.



Everytime I made a new bracelet, I decide it's my favourite! LOL! This is my current favourite.



Since finishing this one, I've made an identical one for a friend at work and there is another one in progress with gold rings along the spine for another friend.

If you fancy a go at this, here is the tutorial I used. Oh and if you're making this weave, you need to make your European 4-in-1 starting chain longer to start with. In the 5mm id rings of the same gauge I've used, the finished bracelet has 7 spine rings to an inch of bracelet. The spine rings are the middle row of rings on the European 4-in-1 starting chain.

I have to head into work later as we have an open day today and we're expecting a few hundred people to come visit the university. So I'm off to do some house chores now.

Have a great weekend, friends.

My Creative Space

I'm learning a new weave as I wait for some new supplies to arrive so I can start on my commissioned chain maille pieces. This is the Full Persian Weave in 6.9mm internal diameter 16 gauge aluminium rings.



It makes a lovely rope effect chain. There are some great youtube tutorials around if you're interested to learn this weave too like this one, this one or this one.

Since I already have so many bracelets, I'm thinking of working this one up to a necklace. I think it'll look fab as a necklace.

For other creative spaces, visit the home of My Creative Space over at Kootoyoo's.

Have a creative day, friends.

Sales and commissions! Woohoo!!

This week has been a great week so far. I sold my first chain maille bracelet to a colleague on Monday! It was one of these neoprene o-ring and multi-coloured aluminium rings bracelets.



That same morning, I got a commission from another colleague who wanted a choker in the double helm weave like the bracelet I showed you in my last post here.

Then a third colleague asked if I could make one of the neoprene o-ring and multi-coloured aluminium rings bracelets for her 8 year old niece. Woohoo - I was on a roll!!!

Over the weekend, I finished my half dragonback bracelet (the one I was working on in my last My Creative Space post last week) and wore it to work on Monday. I bumped into friend at lunchtime who said she was enjoying the photos of my chain maille work. I showed her my new bracelet and she immediately asked me to make her one!

On Tuesday, I sold this bracelet to yet another colleague. Actually, it was this colleague who suggested this particular colourway (thanks Margaret!) and it's worked out really well.



I got a fourth commission this morning for another half dragonback bracelet. Wow! I am going to be very busy in the evenings for the next two weeks at least working on these commissions. I couldn't be happier!

I hope your week's going great so far, friends.

And the obsession continues ...

I'd been meaning to try the Parallel Helm Weave for ages but didn't have the right sized rings in my chain maille box until recently. There's a fabulous tutorial here on Jeff Olin's fantastic CG Maille website.

I wanted to make it girlie and throw in a few seed beads. My first attempt at a Helm chain looked pretty enough but it looked too similar to the centipede weave I had worked on earlier here. Then it struck me that I could double up the chains, weave them together and make a fabulous wide chain.



This 7 inch cuff bracelet is made from eighty-two 8.5mm bright aluminium rings, seventy-four 4mm gold-plated aluminium rings, twenty-six glass seed beads and a slide lock clasp. I think this is by far my favourite piece to date. Do you like it?



Just for good measure, I made a pair of matching earrings too.



For some reason, I was reminded of JRR Tolkien's Lord of the Rings when I was making this double-width Helm chain - I kept thinking of Helms Deep, identified in Peter Jackson's film adaptation of the book as "the great fortress of Rohan".

Have a great week, friends.

My creative space

My space is still being occupied by jump rings. This is my current in-progress bracelet. It starts out life as a simple European 4 in 1 weave strand.



Weave in some more rings along the side and you get the start of a weave known as Dragonback. This is possibly the most complicated weave I have attempted so far.



Find out what's happening in other creative spaces around blogosphere over at Kootoyoo's.

Have a creative day, friends.

Ad·dic·tion [uh-dik-shuhn]

– noun
The condition of being habitually or compulsively occupied with or or involved in something.

I am starting to think I have a problem, friends. I am addicted to chain maille!! I can't stop! If I am not sitting at my table messing about with a bunch of tiny metal jump rings, I'm staring at online tutorials for weaves. And if I am not doing that, I'm tinkering with one of my bracelets and wondering what other colours I can do the same weave in. Heck, I even dreamt about chain maille the other night! I ask you - how bad is that?!!

This is my latest bracelet. I wore it to work the other day. It's made from sections of European 4 in 1 chain maille squares linked together by pairs of red aluminium rings. I really like this one.



And this is the Vertebrae weave choker I made for my cousin in Washington (the state, not the city). I can't wait for her to see it.



Everything's been set to one side whilst I indulge in my current fascination with chain maille. It's terrible. On the plus side, I get some fabulous bracelets to wear every day!

My creative space

I'm still working on my chain maille. The creative space was cleared of one sewing project (see here) and then it was right back to the pliers and a gazillion little metal jump rings. This is the latest 'in progress' project.



It's another Vertebrae Weave chain - this time it's being constructed from gold coloured anodized aluminium and stainless steel rings in 2 different sizes. I wanted to see if stainless steel made for a sturdier chain. This puppy is tough! The stainless steel does make the chain stronger but boy, stainless steel is hard to work with! This one will hopefully be a necklace with a focal hammered silver ring in the middle. I haven't found the right sized ring yet but at the slow rate this one is progressing (good closures are so hard to achieve in the stainless steel), I'll have plenty of time to look for the right ring.

To find out what's going on in other creative spaces around the globe right now, hop over to the home of My Creative Space here.

Have a creative day, friends.

Centipede necklace finished

My first chain maille necklace is done. It would've made a great choker but I don't wear chokers at all so I decided to make it a bit longer and go for a necklace.



This is the Centipede Weave with a tiny Japanese seed bead on each of the larger rings. The larger rings have an internal diameter of 6.8mm ... yep, small! And the smaller rings have an internal diameter of 3.4mm .... even smaller! The beads are 4mm across.



It turned out really pretty, don't you think? I read somewhere that this weave is also sometimes called the Cleopatra Weave.



I'm on the lookout for some nice silver beads now to make an all silver Centipede weave bracelet. I think that would look amazing.

Hope your week is going well so far, friends.

My creative space

In my bid to research new chain maille weaves to find the best ones for a forthcoming project, my creative space is still awash with mini jump rings and my trusty pliers. This one is newly finished (finished it just last night) and needs a but more adjusting for size.



This is the Kingscale or Vertebrae Weave. The red rings are the biggest I've worked with so far with an internal diameter of 9.9 mm. Big rings means that the bracelet makes up faster with fewer rings to an inch of chain.



Hop over to the home of My Creative Space to see what's happening in other spaces.

Wishing you a creative day, friends.

More chain maille

Remember my in-progress project last week? The Byzantine chain with the 3 linking rings in 2 colours? I finished it and had rings left over to make a pair of Byzantine weave earrings. This was made using a bracelet kit from one of the UK suppliers of jump rings for chain maille enthusiasts.





I bought another bracelet kit from the same company but this time, it had both anodised aluminium rings and black rubber O rings. I'd not used the rubber O rings before so it was an interesting project - and a very quick one too as there was nothing complicated about this weave at all.



The rubber O rings are stretchy so I didn't bother with a clasp and just made it a continuous cuff. I love this. It'a got aluminium rings in 5 different colours. A fun bracelet.

My next project is a necklace in something called a Centipede weave. Here's a few links hanging off the end of my tweezers. See those small golden seed beads? They are a mere 4mm across and those little silver rings on the side are just 3.5 mm in diameter .... sooooo small! But very pretty though, right?



I hope you're having a great week wherever you are, friends.

My pretties

It's amazing what you can do with a couple of pairs of pliers and a whole lot of itty bitty jump rings. Remember my blue Byzantine bracelet? I made a simple pair of earrings to go with it.



I liked it so much I made myself another Byzantine bracelet and earring set in matt gold.



This is such a pretty colour combination. The weave makes the bracelet beautifully slinky and as the rings are made from aluminium wire, it weighs next to nothing.



Missy Moo refers to her plastic beaded jewellery as her 'pretties' - as in plural of pretty ... which as we all know is not a proper word but Missy Moo does not care. She tells me that these chain maille bracelets and earrings are my 'pretties'.

Have a great weekend, friends.

Excessively diverted!

Mr CraftyAdy thinks I have the attention span of a flea and is about as flitty as a butterfly when it comes to crafts.

I am the first to admit that I am very easily diverted. I have a gazillion projects on the go and when something neat comes within range of my craft radar, I have a tendency to drop everything and dash off to throw myself 110% off the bridge and into the deep.

My friend, Debs and I have been mulling over a project for a little while now. I am tasked with the design of said project. Can't say too much about it yet as it is in the early stages of development. In the course of my research into ideas to incorporate into the project, I stumbled across the ancient art of chain maille. Yeah ... chain maille ... as in armour - like in Lord of the Rings.

A brief shopping spree on the internet and a couple of days waiting on Mr Postie later, I had myself some nice shiny aluminium rings. Armed with a couple of pairs of pliers, a pair of tweezers (damn but those rings are fiddley and small!) and a little bit of patience, I launched myself into my first chain maille project. Here's the result.



Using about a hundred small blue aluminium rings and 50 or so even smaller silver aluminium rings, I made this 6.5 inch bracelet (I have small wrists) using a popular weave called the Byzantine weave. It's a really cool metal link chain with an interesting texture, don't you think?



My jump ring closures are not as neat as I'd like them to be but it is not bad for a first effort. Chain maille work is incredibly addictive ... one bracelet and I am chomping at the bit to try more weaves!



There were enough blue rings left over to rustle up a pair of matching earrings. I am pretty happy with my new bracelet and in fact, I've started a second Byzantine bracelet in some matt gold aluminium rings and the leftover teeny silver rings.

In the words of the lovely Elizabeth Bennett in Jane Austen's Pride and Prejudice, "Oh! I am excessively diverted. But it is so strange!"