I Like Rocks. And Rings.

I gotta confess. I have a major addiction to rocks. I suspect some of you know of what I speak... pretty beads draw us like magpies. I have a respectable bead collection, but the really crazy addiction....

.... is cabochons. There are a few drilled things here and some miscellany but for the most part this is my cab stash. The sad thing is, I can't stop. I have 11 won auctions and bids on another 8 or so from my favorite eBay cab supplier (WalyBeads) right now. The above includes several varieties of jasper and agate, chrysocolla, cat's eye class, carved quartz, goldstone, kyanite, snowflake obsidian, seraphinite, sodalite, bloodstone, turquoise, hematite, geodes, unakite, mookaite, opalite, some acrylic cameos, and a few other things. I store these in individual cello bags labeled with the stone, size, mohs hardness, country of origin if I know it, and what I paid for it. God forbid my hubby should pull them out some time and add up all those numbers =D

I "only" have about 5 Craft Mates boxes of beads, which include Swarovski, Czech glass, pearls, semiprecious stones, small metal ones, and some random stuff. Oh, and a few dozen tubes of seed beads and Miyukis.

The other MAJOR addiction is rings, which I have in sizes from micro to 14 gauge 3/8" in every metal you can imagine, and most colors you can imagine. I'll have to take a picture of those some time. Those I store in a soft-sided tackle box that goes with me nearly everywhere. I make maille in the car, at friends' and family's houses, watching TV on the couch... pretty much everywhere.

Last night my son came to sit on the couch beside me while I was working on a maille keychain. I had my little tackle box organizer open. He sat on the very corner of it and flipped the whole thing, scattering and mixing the entire box of rings. I'll be finding them for weeks, I imagine. I really should've taken pictures of the chaos, or of him sitting with his head in his hand sorting them with a bamboo skewer (I helped, though when it happened I could've beaten him). Several hours later, they were all neatly re-sorted. It was bound to happen sooner or later. I'm thinking Craft Mates individually locking compartments for rings, now.

I know beaders and maillers aren't the only packrats. I've seen seamstresses' fabric stash and kitters' yarn stash. I have a polymer clay stash, myself, even though I've never done anything serious with it but have always wanted to. I have a stash of acrylic paints for the miniatures I used to paint (maybe I should pull those out...). My three drawers of kitchen gadgets might count as a stash.

Sometimes the cool thing about a stash of goodies is that it can be inspiration in itself. Sometimes I just pull everything out and browse, and something jumps out at me and says "make this!"

What's your stash?

Dragon Days Renaissance Festival

Well, Russ borrowed a nice camera and was going to take pictures of my booth. This is the only one he took :) At least it shows my nifty earring display, which I made myself out of a picture frame with strips of balsa wood to hold the earring cards (and I got really beauitful new parchment cards). There's Brandon in the background working on hacky sacks.

The festival wasn't bad. Considering the lack of advertising and attendees, I made back double my booth fee, and Brandon made only slightly less than I did, besides that.

Story there. I've been bugging him to make hacky sacks for a month and he's just been too busy. He got 2 made. EVERY person that walked by the booth picked those things up and played with them (they're great fun!). He got orders for 3 custom ones the first day and another 3 the second day, plus sold one of the ones he made, so he was busy cranking them out while we were there, and made almost as much as I did with a booth full of jewelry.

Wisely, he spent most of the money he made that weekend on supplies to make more hackys for the faires coming up. This Friday: White County Middle School Renaissance Festival. Hopefully we'll get some better pics of the booth!

Congrats OWOH Winners

These are the two custom bracelets I made for the winners of the One World, One Heart giveaway. 

The black one is headed to Dee Dee Quigley in Hazelton, PA, and the pink and purple one is on its way to Lynda Taylor in Australia.  Congrats to both of you!! :)

I won stuff too!
From Greenish Lady in Ireland I won one of these pretty decoupage bowls/vases:

and from the Dark Artists' Guild (The Studio at Crow Haven Farm) I won this nifty little dude:

Thanks so much, both to those who gave away so many awesome things (I actually managed to visit all 911 blogs!! and found some really cool people in the process), as well as those who came and entered my giveaway.  I had a great time finding new people, and the International aspect of it was really awesome -- I'm thrilled to be sending one of my prizes to an international winner, and to have won something from overseas, too. 

If you really wanted one of those bracelets, you can still have one, of course, just drop by You've Got Maille and let me know what colors you want, I'd be thrilled to make one for you.

Last Day for One World One Heart!

Red Zone Stretchy Chainmaille Bracelet - You could design yours like this!

Unless you spend the whole day I doubt you'll get through all of the 911 bloggers giving away goodies, but you can make a nice dent!  At least go to THIS POST on my blog and enter mine, if you haven't, to win colorful stretchy chainmaille bracelets like the one above, your choice of colors!  I'm already over 200 entrants so I will probably give away 2 bracelets!  :)

Then go to the One World, One Heart website and check out some of the other fabulous giveaways.  You have 911 chances to win and the most entrants I've seen on one item was 360 or so, so you have an excellent chance to win something!

~oOo~

My Etsy Valentine: Hearts, Chocolates and Flowers #9
A daily feature till Valentine's Day



Medieval Studded Heart Ring by 3 Rexes Jewelry

We're getting down to crunch time here.  If you haven't ordered something for your valentine, it'd better be good.  So now we're getting to the good stuff.  The crap honey I forgot but look how awesome this is stuff.

There's not much in 3 Rexes' shop that my hubby could buy for me that I wouldn't absolutely adore.  Tons of it is Valentine-perfect, too, go look.  I think I'll probably be asking for tools for the next gazillion holidays, though, and making my own stuff.  So I might have to buy my own 3 Rexes ;)

Chainmaille: How We Got Here

Judith at Second Renaissance

Since I have a lot of people breezing through who might not be familiar with maille, I thought I'd say a word or two on the state of chainmaille in the world today.

Of course, in ancient times it was made of bronze, brass, or steel and worn as armor. It's much lighter than plate armor and much easier to fix if damaged.

Some time in the last couple of decades the Renaissance faire-going and SCA-attending crowd started making their own armor out of coiled rings. Usually steel. But steel's heavy, and if you're fighting with PVC swords, or not fighting at all, you don't really need all that much protection. Aluminum is one third the weight of steel, so it was a natural choice. From there it was a short step for the ladies of said geeky persuasions to start wearing bits of their own chainmaille... necklaces, headdresses, that sort of thing. The guys made themselves rings and bracelets. They experimented with the weaves and started inventing amazing new ones.

Along came the hobby jeweler (probably just behind scrapbooking in the hobbyist craze, to judge from the amount of inventory at my local Hobby Lobby). They were using a lot of wire anyway... I don't know who started it, but really, chainmaille is a natural fit here. It requires a minimum of tools, and done in silver is mesmerizing. Plus... if you've never had a piece of well made chainmaille in your hands you're missing out. The feel is extremely sensual and incredibly fun to fidget with if you've got restless hands. Chainmaille went from the bits of "geek" jewelry to sleek creations in glimmering precious metals. And the jewelers carried the experimentation even further, and added other jewelry making techniques and materials into the mix.

I guess I wouldn't call chainmaille "mainstream" yet, although it's made its appearance on the fashion runways in the past few years (wait... that's not mainstream, never mind). But that might be a good thing, because "unique" is the word I hear most often to describe my work, which I like. And you want to wear something unique, too, right?

So whether you're looking for something to wear with your Renfaire costume, a stretchy bracelet to wear to high school, a slinky choker to wear with that little black dress, a sturdy stainless steel bracelet to wear to your blue collar job, or armor against the mundane, you'll find it in chainmaille.

So here's my suggestion: head on over to Etsy and search "chainmaillers team" or go to our Etsy Chainmaillers' Guild blog, where you'll find an amazing array of styles and materials to fit your mood and your personal style. And of course, I'd love to work with you personally to make a custom item exactly the way you want it.

A Stroke of Inspiration

I was thinking about my upcoming shows and marketing in general. I've been doing these stretchy rubber-ringed bracelets in a variety of colors, and suddenly I thought: I could do these custom. I could do a lot of items custom.

Soooo, that led to the idea of making a YGM custom catalog, which shows a variety of basic designs and below that smaller pictures of options for customizing (color, material, beads, charms, etc.) There will be a print version of this for handing out at shows, and an online version at ... tada! my new domain, http://www.youvegotmaille.net (don't visit if you're reading this in the next few days after its posting, there's nothing there yet.). This will be a work in progress as I get samples of the various items up. But, hopefully, within the month, fully customizable chainmaille and wire items will be available at youvegotmaille.net

Some of the things available will be:
stretchy bracelets in a variety of weaves
viking star keychains (aka celtic star)
chainmaille choker with customizable charms and dagger bead colors
mother's pendants with Swarovski birth stones
crocheted beaded wire necklaces (wire color/beads)
wallet chains
dice bags
tie chains
and more! stay tuned...

Belle Armoire Magazine

I've submitted four items for consideration for a feature in Belle Armore magazine, including Rhiannon, Prismatic (above), Canopy and Pharaoh. (See my Flickr for photos). They'll review the items, and if they like them, ask me to send them in for professional photography, and I'll get to write an article on chainmaille. I'll keep you posted on this.. they asked me to submit items about six weeks ago and I've been wanting to get a light box and take some really nice photos (and do more items), and I did the latter but not the former. And the camera is still broken, argh. If I could stop spending money on supplies I'd get it fixed :)

Anyway wish me luck!

Busy

I get a little irritated and frustrated when life gets so busy that I don't have time to create. This week there was work, and we had my "niece" in from out of town with her parents. Alli is almost three (okay, I LOVE being Auntie Dee.. we raced around the aquarium in Chattanooga, played throw the kid around and make her giggle games, and threw rocks in the river...) and I had a great time. Still, it meant cramming in other things around the visiting schedule and not much time at the bench.

So I started doing "regular work" (medical transcription) yesterday after they left. I lasted about three hours before I gave in to the urge, and obsessively wove chain and wrapped wire until my hands said "NO more" about 10 hours later. I took out my "in progress" box and wrapped up several projects that I lost steam on, and made a new item I hadn't done before: ear cuffs. I did the pendant at right on Monday -- my first wire wrapped cab. I'm pretty satisfied with the way it turned out. The one thing I didn't get to yesterday was more of those, and I have five or six waiting for me to do them.

I had also ordered some sterling silver rings -- my first silver! from Maille Etc. and I think I'm addicted. Soooooo shiny. They had a really tiny AR (2.8-ish, I think), so I ended up falling back on my old standby byzantine bracelet, but wow with the sterling clasp I'd ordered it came out so pretty. The picture doesn't show it that well but it's a toggle clasp that turns into a rose when you close it. <3 I want more sterling! I need more niobium to finish another project......

So many ideas, so little time. Anyway keep an eye on my Etsy shop (and my flickr, since there are lots of birthdays and my parents' anniversary that I plan to make things for, that won't make it to the shop) for lots of new items this week. I'll probably be listing them a few at a time.

Celtic Magic: Etsy Finds Week of 7/7/08

This week I chose a love of mine as a feature theme for our Etsy Finds of the Week: Celtic items, especially knotwork. Knotwork is incredibly fun to look at and much more difficult to draw than it looks. On to our finds...

Celtic Knot Cross Pendant by Tara Greer at 3Rexes Jewelry

There was a whole lot of jewelry that had knotwork on it to be found on Etsy. I chose this one because it's beautiful, and because the seller designed, carved and cast it herself. That's impressive. Not only that, but the photography on this piece is outstanding. That makes me think I need to do some info on photography at some point.....

Stone Celtic King miniature carving by CarltonARTfactory

The Celts were amazing craftsman. When the vikings raided Ireland, they loved to plunder the monasteries for their silverwork and stonework. Stone being rather durable, many examples of Celtic stonework exist still. This fellow does a great job of conjuring up such master craftsmanship and looks like he could be an artifact out of an ancient site, but in fact he's been carved out of a river rock rather recently.

Celtic Knots Woodburned Book Box by Sixth and Elm

The choice of beautiful silvery wood on this box is fabulous. It looks like a book but when opened is a box. The knotwork, too, is great. Five stars :)

The White Horse by Emily Balivet

If, like me, you're a fan of the Renaissance, fantasy art, or mythology, you must visit this shop. The prints are reasonably priced. My walls are filling up with tapestries, swords, iron sconces and woodcut knights, and one of her prints would look right at home. They evoke Renaissance painters, and the colors are so vibrant. I had a hard time picking one to feature, but I thought this one fit my "Celtic" theme rather well.

Miniature Sword Pendant Necklace by Knights' Swords

This piece is the reason I chose the theme, although originally I was going to go with a Renaissance theme. Visit the shop; they have a couple of sword pendants, and some shields, all insanely cool. Most of the sword pendants I've seen have had a cast, "fantasy" look about them, not like you could pick it up and charge into battle if you were six inches tall. I'd love to make this the centerpiece of a chainmaille jewelry design for myself. Maybe someday :)

History of Maille, Part I

I never noticed that maille was mentioned in the Bible but it goes back apparently to Moses' time (13th century B.C.). These were the instructions given to make garment for Israel's high priest: "And thou shalt make the robe of the ephod all of blue. And it shall have a binding of woven work round about the hole of it, as it were the hole of a coat of mail, that it be not rent." -- Exodus 28:31,32 [American Standard Version, 1901] It is mentioned again in the well-known tail of David vs. Goliath, Goliath being clad in a coat of mail.
The oldest found pieces of maille are in the graves of Celtic warriors, dated about 400 B.C. It was probably from the Celts that the Romans discovered it, and quickly added it to their own armor. The method of making the rings then was much the same as now: steel was drawn into wire, wrapped around a mandrel, and cut; although they likely used a chisel, and we have more sophisticated methods of cutting the wire now (although a hand saw isn't really all that much more sophisticated).
The weave that the Celts used was the same European 4-in-1 that is most commonly thought of as chainmaille today, and its purpose was to deflect a weapon and make it slide off the garment. Because it was made of many pieces, repair was a relatively simple thing (compared to plate, for example). It was also lighter (although a steel hip-length shirt weighs approximately 35 lbs., which is not something you frolic in).
Oriental maille had quite a different purpose, apparently. It was not woven in whole shirts but used at the joining-points of armor (European maille was often used similarly, especially when plate mail came into vogue). Also, pieces of it were added to armor that had edges meant to catch a weapon and give the armored warrior the second he needed to return a blow while the opponent's weapon was caught. From the images above, maybe you can see how the much more rigid Japanese weave might do this. The weaves pictured are regular European 4-in-1, and a Japanese web weave.

Stay with us as we follow maille (hopefully) from protecting a Phillistine giant to the mainstream jewelry business and hobby with rings in high-tech niobium and titanium or in glittering sterling, and all the places it's been in between.

Tools of the Trade

I can't live without this little doohickey. Do you other chainmaillers use one of these? It's a jump ring opener, you wear it on your off hand (left, in my case), and with a pair of pliers stick your rings in it and twist, and you have a nice, even open. I'm finding that I frequently bend rings beyond repair when I do the two-plier method, especially copper rings.

Now, I'm sure this wouldn't be handy with 12 gauge steel. It's got varying slots that fit 20 ga probably up to 14 or so? The BEST thing about it is, you're in the middle of a tricky weave, and you're holding it so the next ring goes right THERE, and then you go "oh crap I'm out of open rings...." You don't have to drop it with this, you can hold on to your work in progress, pick up a ring with your pliers, twist your hand around a little, and open a ring without letting go.

Indispensible. Paradise Beads has them. Fire Mountain has them. I'm sure Rio Grande does, but not 100%. Your craft store might even have one. I accidently picked mine up in a 'how to do byzantine' kit and have been in love with it ever since. Panic ensues when I start mailling and I can't find it, so I'm planning on buying an extra three or four, and a big ring so Brandon can try it out, too, cause my little dinky one doesn't fit his big fingers :) We're not talking major investment here, either: under $3 in most places.

Issue #2: I've worn out a pair of chain nose pliers in a month. They were $5.99, The Ring Lord brand. No, I'm not a big spender. But I figure if I'm going to be doing this on a regular basis I need to shop for 1) comfort 2) durability. Love to hear what other maillers are using. I'm planning on springing for a pair of Wubbers, or maybe even Lindstrom. Then I am going to replace the round nose and wire cutters too. Eventually.

Oh, and is anyone using Tool Dip? Do you find it necessary? I'm scratching very few anodized rings EXCEPT when I have a tight spot and can't use my handy ring thingy and can barely get 2 sets of pliers in there.. that's when I slip and scratch, which causes great sadness and trauma, because that's when trying to put another ring in there makes me say $#!#!@&(*@! And other nice things.

In other news, I have a recommendation for Lime Away for copper cleaning. That sounds like anodization eating product, to me, but I may have to try it. I may end up not being able to mix things that oxidize with things that are anodized. That would make me sad.

And that's it for this week's episode of Things That Make Me Sad. And now I want a cappuccino.

"Oh WOW" Etsy finds of the week.

Seems lots of people are featuring other Etsy sellers in their blogs, and even though I'm not usually one to succumb to peer pressure, I keep finding way to many things I like (I surf Etsy while I'm listening to doctors go 'um... um' when I'm typing) not to follow suit. SO! This will serve as sort of a combination feature of 'oh crap I wish I was this good' and 'oh crap I wish I could afford one of these' and 'I AM going to buy one of these one of these days if I could stop spending money on beads and little metal rings' and just plain 'freaking sweet!' items. Mostly stuff posted in the last week, preferably, but I may not be able to resist the urge to post other crazy cool stuff too. Oh, and at least one item each week will be chainmaille.

Without further adieu!

Maille and Kuchi Belt by A Case of Random

Doesn't it just make you want to shake your hips a little, just to see if they jingle? I'm working on a maille belt myself and I like the criss-crossy chains design, but what I especially like is the focal piece.

Merlinite Pendant by Verda's Muse

This is the kind of wire wrapping I'd love to be able to do. A gorgeous stone, mostly unobtrusive wire, but the little curlicue at the side accenting it perfectly like an intentionally tousled lock of hair. I had to look up merlinite, and it said it's a combination of white quartz and psilomelane (gesundheit!). Well, whatever... metaphysically it's supposed to augment the memories of wizards and scientists, so if you can't remember the recipe for the dinner you wanted to make tonight, go pick this up :)

Little Mermaids ACEO set of 2 by Ruby's Brush

It's a very good thing I've already said I'd post recently listed items here or I'd have never been able to choose one of Ruby's gorgeous paintings to feature. One of these need to be in my sea-themed bathroom :)
For those of you who feel as ignorant as I did until about a week or two ago in not knowing what ACEO is, it stands for Art Cards: Editions, Originals. So basically original artwork featured on a card. Which is, I think a fantastic way to feature original art. I am, of course, partial to fantasy artwork.
But you really should check out her other items.

Decorative Shelf with Stylized Flower Tile by L'esperance Tile Works

WOW.. I wish it wasn't such a lean month financially, I'd definitely find a place to put this. I've always been the sort of home decorator who loves the "Home Interiors" method of decorating... meaning I love to make groupings. A painting plus a sconce plus a shelf with some cute things on it.. a SHELF, and oh is this a pretty one. I think a painting next to it would be too much but a nice oak sconce with some pretty glass candle holder would look so lovely in my living room or hallway.
Really, honestly, I'm not a big ceramics person. I see things with $80 price tags on them so often at craft shows that make me go... "UGLY!" But every once in a while I find a ceramics artist who can really make mud sparkle. This is definitely one of them. Favorited. Will be buying stuff when I have moo-lah (like that ever happens). But you know, prices in this shop are really really reasonable.

There you have it, my picks for the week. Now go buy something!

Fish and Chips

So, experiment results. I know the pictures are crappy but all I had available was my cell phone.

Lemon juice: safe for anodized aluminum, does take some of the oxidation off copper, but it doesn't shine it, just lightens it. Not impressed.

Vinegar + salt combination: didn't work that great for the copper (although I didn't boil it as the directions indicated), and it didn't strip the anodizing, but I think if I had rubbed the finish at all it would have damaged it. Thumbs down.

When Russ heard about this experiment he said it sounded like options for a fish & chips restaurant :)

I also tried a baking soda paste on a penny. My thought was that it wouldn't be a great option for chainmaille because of the links and nooks and crannies. It didn't work that great on a penny, either. Also not recommended for fish and chips.

I am still looking for a good option for cleaning copper without destroying the finish on anodized aluminum on the same piece. Know any?

Base Materials

[Photo of The Ring Lord's anodized aluminum colors]

I'm just going to review a couple of base metal materials that I've worked with, how they are to work with, and how they wear as far as long-term life. There are several that I have not worked with, including precious metals, and I suppose I'll get around to them later.

Bright Aluminum
When I'm done working with BA my fingers are black. As a result, I haven't used it for jewelry at all, because I can't imagine it wouldn't do the same to your neck if you wore it as a choker. It washes off easily enough, but a blackened band around your neck doesn't exactly make for oohs and aahs. What I have and will use it for is anything that doesn't touch a lot of skin:

• dangly earrings
• belts
• headdresses
• decorative items, bags, etc.
  

Since aluminum is the most plentiful metal on the earth (in fact the most plentiful element after oxygen and silicon), BA is cheap and therefore terrific to work with for learning new weaves. It is also light weight (one third the weight of steel), so it's great for costume maille shirts, coifs, etc. It's not difficult to work with in terms of opening and closing rings at all. TRL claims that there's "little to no noticeable ruboff" from it. I may have to test this. Bonus: it doesn't corrode.

Anodized Aluminum
I love the stuff. No, the colors aren't as vibrant or metallic as niobium, but it's easier to work with, much less expensive, and I actually like some of the colors better (green being an example).
Anodizing apparently triples the price of aluminum, at least at TRL. It's worth it (and still no more expensive than copper). I especially love working with their black, which has a silky finish on it.
I have no ruboff on my fingers when working with it, which I assume means it won't rub off on the wearer, either. There is only one drawback to AA as far as I can tell: how durable is the finish? It can't be cleaned with ultrasonic or harsh chemical cleaners, although I'm not sure how much cleaning it would need since it won't oxidize or corrode. I intend to test the longevity of the anodized finish, as well, by making and using a keychain out of the stuff. More info on that to come.
I have had to throw out a few rings because my pliers popped off a ring and damaged the finish, but I'm using bare pliers (no tool dip or masking tape). Planning on trying out the tool dip.
Verdict: might be my favorite base metal for the cost.

Oh, by the way, check out this nifty studio doing a variety of jewelry and seriously cool mobiles out of AA: HSU Studios

Copper
It's supposed to help arthritis, wearing copper jewelry. There's no scientific evidence for this, but hey, it can't hurt, can it?
Copper's major drawback is the fact that it oxidizes quickly. You can tell an old penny from a new penny instantly. Some maille artists use this to their advantage and mix various-aged coppers in the same piece. It looks cool, but will they all look the same eventually?
Copper can oxidize by just darkening, or greening. It will turn some people's skin green, depending on body chemistry.
Since I like to mix metals (copper and some colors of AA are so pretty together), I am conducting an experiment: I dropped BA, AA, and copper rings into a mixture of white vinegar and salt, which I have seen recommended for cleaning copper, and another with lemon juice. Stay tuned for the results. What I am after is something that will clean copper without destroying the anodized finish on the aluminum. Preliminary investigation makes me think it's gonna eat the anodized layer. A rock tumbler will also polish up your copper, but that definitely will eat the aluminum's color. I'm starting to think my mixed metal pieces are going to have to be disassembled for cleaning. Ick.
Copper is, for the record, very easy to work with as far as malleability.



Steel
I haven't worked with it yet. You've got options for galvanized steel (affectionately known as "galvy"), stainless, or mild steel. Stainless shouldn't rust, so it may be a nice option for jewelry. "Mild" steel is meant to look "medieval", and it will rust. Quickly, I think, especially exposed to moisture or in this humid Tennessee air. Galvy has a zinc surface layer that will keep it from rusting, but it has a dull finish I don't care much for. More experimentation needed here, as well.

Anodized Niobium
I'm in love with this metal. No pictures do it justice. It anodizes in gorgeous metallic, almost iridescent hues. It's hypoallergenic. It's easy to work with (except, I think maybe, for cutting your own rings, which I haven't tried). Once again the only drawback is the longevity of the anodized layer and propensity to scratches. I'll need to wear it more to talk about this stuff.

Anodized Titanium
Doubt I'll be buying much more of this, though I may try a different supplier. Titanium is stiff and hard to work with, the cuts were not flush (I assume because it is so very difficult to cut), and it's hard to make the rings close back the way you want them to because of its "memory." The plus side is that it anodizes in really pretty muted hues.

Bronze, Brass, Silver and Gold, Inconel, Enameled Copper
Haven't worked with any of these in chainmaille, so stay tuned. I have used some brass findings, and EC wire (impression: lacks strength because of the enamel coating). Since I want to play with Vintaj products a bit, I may make some brass things to match them. And I'm considering winding my own silver rings to save a few dollars. Stay tuned for part 2: Precious Materials.

Long Distance Chainmaille

I thought I'd introduce my partner in crime tonight. My son Brandon is 15. Two years ago for Christmas I bought him a chainmaille dice bag kit, and it's been sitting in his room unassembled since. When I decided to do chainmaille jewelry several months ago, I had Dylon White's chainmaille book sitting on the kitchen table and while Bran was eating his cereal he suddenly went "Oh!" You could almost see the light bulb go on over his head.

So he started weaving (and taking over my rings...). He is currently staying with his dad for the summer, where he is also creating a variety of maille items, many of which I will likely list in the shop when he comes home in a few weeks. He has a terrific eye for patterns and I'm sorry to say he tends to pick up most weaves more quickly than I do (and can still do a few that I can't).

The picture at right is from White County Middle School's Renaissance Festival, the first year we moved to Tennessee. We thought that this was the coolest thing ever, and still do. Bran has been in the Human Chess Match three years running, and just this past year I started teaching the kids Renaissance dances that I learned for my Renaissance wedding in '06. We're proud to be a part of the Ren club, and learning to weave chainmaille is just another part of our love affair with the Renaissance.