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!

Another holiday, but I manged to squeeze in 3 more projects! Feels like a good start to the new year so far.

A variation on the Byzantine weave.  The center item is a pendant for a necklace (just haven't gotten the chain yet).  There's a variation for color, by changing up the vertical triple rings from silver, which I'll probably try next time.


I threw together the next item for my NYE party:

Started it that morning and manged to get it done just before I had to head out for the party. It's silver and gunmetal grey. Unlike the green/brown Byzantine rope necklace I did earlier, this one is very loose and flowing.

Cooked this up tonight to go with the above necklace:

It's a double spiral bracelet also made in gunmetal grey. It's amazing how much lighter these pieces are than they look!

Next up - Dragon scales!

Over 5 hours later, and this is what I've managed:

Man, that was more work than I expected.  The project had called for about 140ish rings, but for the length I wanted, I was easily pushing into 400. 

This is my 'for me' piece.  I wanted earthy colors, so this is made up of green and brown.  Granted this time of year it's looking a little red and green in some lights, but overall I'm pleased with it. 

Not that I'm planning on doing this pattern again anytime soon!

Huzzah for my supplier for being located in Chicago, for my order has arrived!

Do you know what 4000 rings look like?

It looks something like that. 

Let's see what I can get done tonight...

So, here's part 2 of "Adventures in Chainmailing" (Part 1 below)

We're on project 3.  By this point, I've put in an order for more rings of varying size and color, but all I have available are the first ones I picked up at Michaels, which are only 3 base colors and very small sizes. The size is especially frustrating, as it limits me from being able to try other patterns (and believe me, I tried!)

To feel productive, I go back to Project 2, but vary up the colors:

...which I'm pleased with, despite having to repeat a project already. 

I then decided to try and create a spiral bracelet.  Due to the size of the rings, I'm limited to about 7 links in before it's too packed to continue.  On the plus side, it makes a nice pair of earrings :)

And last, but not least, I played around with the only other weave I seemed able to put together with my limited stock (my ring order has shipped at this point at least!), an English 4-in-1 I believe?  Bracelet's not too bad, just a bit delicate for my tastes:

So that's all I have right now.  But I'd say not bad for a weeks worth of work (and a non-chaining holiday weekend included in there).  I'll post more as I create it.  Which will be when my new rings get here...

So it's been a while....

Needless to say, I've had some inspiration fail on the art production end.  But on the plus side, I've found my creative outlet! It just wasn't where I'd left it.

So....Chainmail is my new thing. I know, kinda left field from drawing and painting, but one can't question their muse.  I'll start posting my projects here.  It's only been a week since I saw my first piece of chainmail jewelry in a book, and I'm happy to say I've already got 6 projects I'll be posting. 

So, yeah, I'm a little inspired :D

Here's my first project, pretty basic, but you have to craw before you can walk (unless you're my youngest nephew...)

Wore those the next day, as I was quite proud (even if there's a huge chip off a link in the back).

So the next night, I kicked out these babies:

Even though I'd finished these at 11:30 pm, my chaining need hadn't been sated.  I'd ordered a 'kit' earlier (comes with rings and instructions, assembly required).  So I couldn't help myself and started in on it at this point.  2.5 hours later, I have this helm chained beauty:

Here's a bit more detail - it's a neat 'floating link' effect:

Wore that one on Christmas.  It's a nice piece.



Part 2 will be posted shortly, with my next 3 projects.