Big post after a long hiatus.

It's been a bit, so you might think I've been losing some of my chainmailing intensity with the lack of posts.  Not so!  I've just been between orders.  Got one order in today, and am expecting another big one in a week or so, and that will keep me in rings for a good happy while. Huzzah!

So while I was impatiently waiting for a fresh supply, I spent my off time playing with ring sizes and patterns.  I started several that I hadn't planned on actually using yet, but wanted to at least try out. I added some black scales to my scalemail as well, until I ran out of those.  And then I kicked out some bracelets:

The left one is bright aluminum, and a 'wiggle' style that's simple but lovely.  The right side is done in gunmetal and is a double spiral.  A bit more of a pain to pull off, but the effect is still quite nice.

I also had a lot of odd ring sizes to play with, and picked up various bead and necklace adornments to experiment with. From that, I created:

It's my first original piece - the ringwork in the center is a modified byzantine style, to work with the circle-shaped beads and the rings I had with. It took quite a bit of tweaking to figure out what would finally fit right, but in the end, considering it's made with items I had on hand, I was pleased.

The chain took the longest tho, as it was the 'wiggle' style, but anything with rings that small and a length that long, well, it'll be a bit of a timesink.

To today I got my shipment - and the project that has my hands sore tonight?

Dragonscale!  I had to lay it out this way because the beauty of the piece is the color underneath.  The blue is quite eye-catching, but unfortunately the gunmetal I chose is actually a bit too subtle to really appreciate the effect. And boy, is this a pain in the rear to do. Granted, it's my learning piece, so it will get faster, but the rings-per-inch ratio is quite intensive.

Lastly, while not a piece, I did want to show off some of the color I have now.  Mostly in scales (earrings anyone?) but I threw some of the blue rings out just so you could appreciate the brilliant color of them.

So that's what I've been up to. I'm quite stocked up now, so I should be able to keep my self busy...for a while at least.

It's been a couple days - I've been working on a fair amount of trial and error.

On a side note, Scalemail!

It's only a start, as I've run out of silver scales, but I'm slowly getting the hang of this.  Going to make for some neat pieces later I think.

Remember that small bit of chain below my bracelet in my pic yesterday?

Well, let's just say my hands are sore:

And I still have a ways to go.  Probably on step 3 out of 5.

In the meantime, I did another pair of earrings for tomorrow, graduated colors from silver to black.  Turned out pretty cool.

Finished up for the night. Managed to get a new cuff done (8-in-1 English for most of it). Not crazy about the fasteners, but overall it's pretty neat.

Below it is the start of a much longer project.  The part shown is pretty much exactly like the helm chain necklace I made before, but it branches out into a more extravagant necklace (in theory).

As promised - Scale earrings!

They're incognito as I haven't added the ear hooks yet (need to pick more up).  But they'll be silver and attached on the right side.  The colors are silver (aluminum), gunmetal, and black.

Off to larger projects!

Well, I can see my rings were delivered to my apartment, but I won't even have my hands on them till tomorrow night.  So in the meantime, I was playing around with beads, wiring them, and also had fun with various ring sizes to see what I could put together.  I came up with these two fun items:

Silver with a light purple bead, and then green/silver with a greenish bead.  Just what I had on hand, and I'm mostly happy with how they turned out.

Really want to play with my new order tho...and the scales!!

Well, I'm still waiting for my next shipment of rings to come in.  But I can't help myself, I do want to keep working on things.

The last two nights, I've done fragments of weaves testing out different pattens, but in the extra colors I have lying around which I don't plan on using.  So that's been alright.


Below is a pic of earrings I've made with spare colors and sizes from my previous projects.  The top pair was the first earring set I threw together to have something that matched my gunmetal necklace and bracelet. Tho they're fine earrings, I felt like the Japanese cross pattern clashed with the style of my necklace.  So tonight I put together the bottom two, done in the same style as my byzantine necklace, just to see if they worked.  I don't think they turned out half bad:

This will sate my crafting need tonight, but this weekend might be rough, as Monday will probably be the earliest I see my next round of rings.  At the rate I burn through them, I should probably be putting in my next order!