RingBling - Chainmail/Jump Ring Jewelry Designs and Technique
About seven years ago, in the midst of one of several unemployed periods in my life, I somehow fell into making jewelry to pass the time. The form I focused on was jump-ring jewellry, also known as chain mail or chain maille. The reason I picked working with jump-rings was that I found it incredibly peaceful and even meditative. When I got better at it, I could even do it while watching TV. Doing two things at once is always a bonus :D, but apparently the activity masages several acupuncture points in human hands. I found other types of jewelry-making rather frustrating. Jump ring work relaxed me. What's more, I found that despite the connotation of chainmail and war/battle, I could design many beautiful pieces that someone with no interest in battlegear might wear.
Over the years, I dabbled in jump-ring jewelry, never quite committing until a couple of years ago. But I moved back to my small hometown a year ago, and getting materials is extremely difficult. (I don't use credit cards.) I've actually had to turn down some orders. That may be a mixed blessing. While my jump ring jewelry got many rave reviews and almost a profile in a wire jewelry magazine, I only ever sold a small handful. The more intricate pieces that I love to make are costly to make unless you buy materials in bulk quantities. They are also time-consuming. I spent 7-8 hrs over two days making my mother a birthday present of a "Japanese maille" necklace in gold rings and red glass beads. Half way through, I thought I'd run out of jump rings. I had to go searching for more gold-coloured rings. Not being able to find them in the right size and the right color tone, I had to modify the design. After I presented it, however, my mother told me that I should have made it with green beads. (I had to laugh, as all I'd ever seen in her collection was gold and red, with the occasional blue. Never gold and green.)
Jump-ring jewelry making is something that you get faster at with much practice and the right tools. The right set of pliers make an enormous difference. I work with three pairs of pliers, with one pair in each hand at the same time. With much practice, some of the chainmail bracelets I made went from taking 1.5 hours to 45 minutes.
Nevertheless, with my time divided up over several different pursuits, I've recently had to focus only on jump ring and chainmail designs. In addition to the designs of several years ago, I've sketched out over a hundred designs in the past year. With the popularity of movies like Lord of the Rings and other fantastical epics and battle films, chainmail has enjoyed a fair bit of popularity itself recently. So I thought I'd take advantage of the current popularity of chainmail and post a few of my designs, complete with instructions, free of charge. Basic ideas will be presented here. More detailed instructions will be posted at my very ugly, unfinished website, Wire Genius (which is really just a redirect to my consulting website, in case you notice the browser status bar).
By the way, there are several dozen great jump ring/chainmail websites, many of which will be mentioned here eventually. I unfortunately lost my Mozilla browser bookmarks when my computer crashed for the umpteenth time yesterday. You'd think I'd learn...
(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://ringbling.blogspot.com
Over the years, I dabbled in jump-ring jewelry, never quite committing until a couple of years ago. But I moved back to my small hometown a year ago, and getting materials is extremely difficult. (I don't use credit cards.) I've actually had to turn down some orders. That may be a mixed blessing. While my jump ring jewelry got many rave reviews and almost a profile in a wire jewelry magazine, I only ever sold a small handful. The more intricate pieces that I love to make are costly to make unless you buy materials in bulk quantities. They are also time-consuming. I spent 7-8 hrs over two days making my mother a birthday present of a "Japanese maille" necklace in gold rings and red glass beads. Half way through, I thought I'd run out of jump rings. I had to go searching for more gold-coloured rings. Not being able to find them in the right size and the right color tone, I had to modify the design. After I presented it, however, my mother told me that I should have made it with green beads. (I had to laugh, as all I'd ever seen in her collection was gold and red, with the occasional blue. Never gold and green.)
Jump-ring jewelry making is something that you get faster at with much practice and the right tools. The right set of pliers make an enormous difference. I work with three pairs of pliers, with one pair in each hand at the same time. With much practice, some of the chainmail bracelets I made went from taking 1.5 hours to 45 minutes.
Nevertheless, with my time divided up over several different pursuits, I've recently had to focus only on jump ring and chainmail designs. In addition to the designs of several years ago, I've sketched out over a hundred designs in the past year. With the popularity of movies like Lord of the Rings and other fantastical epics and battle films, chainmail has enjoyed a fair bit of popularity itself recently. So I thought I'd take advantage of the current popularity of chainmail and post a few of my designs, complete with instructions, free of charge. Basic ideas will be presented here. More detailed instructions will be posted at my very ugly, unfinished website, Wire Genius (which is really just a redirect to my consulting website, in case you notice the browser status bar).
By the way, there are several dozen great jump ring/chainmail websites, many of which will be mentioned here eventually. I unfortunately lost my Mozilla browser bookmarks when my computer crashed for the umpteenth time yesterday. You'd think I'd learn...
(c) Copyright 2005-present, Raj Kumar Dash, http://ringbling.blogspot.com
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