by Joy Jones.
(Washington DC, USA)
I am SO intimidated by chain maille! All those rings…interior diameters, exterior diameters, aspect ratios – ugh! But when I saw this pattern at irinascutebox.com (no longer available), I decided to give it one last try.
I made all my own jumprings (time-consuming but satisfying and maybe the key to success) of 18G goldplated copper wire and chose gold-tipped, smoky Czech glass faceted rounds instead of the called-for pearls.
It did take patience but by the end of the evening, voila! – a beautiful, rich looking, weighty bracelet that belies its beginner’s roots. I can’t believe I conquered chain maille.
Joy Jones
PrettyDaily Jewelry at Etsy
Absolutely lovely, Joy!
This is lovely! I have seen this at Irina’s cute box and want to try it as well. I am new to chainmaille but I am growing to love it.
Absolutely gorgeous! I have been intimidated too, especially with my math deficient mind! You have inspired me:)
You did a great job! My jumprings fit really tightly around the beads and I used smaller diameter rings to start and finish the bracelet. The jumprings don’t appear to have opened, but beads have fallen out. This has happened to 2 bracelets, one made with pearls and one made with round faceted beads. Does anyone have suggestions on how to keep the beads from falling out when wearing this style bracelet?
What I have read on this style bracelet is that the bead should be 2mm smaller than the jump ring, no smaller than 3mm. Dont know if that helps at all.
I had the same issue with the beads popping out of the bracelets I made, every single one that I made. I tried EVERYTHING, fooling around with different sized beads and jump rings and nothing worked. HELP!
If you are finding that one of the end beads keeps falling out, then it is something to do with the final rings – I always finish these bracelets with a doubled up very small ring of about 3mm inner diameter on each side.
Bracelets get a lot of hard wear. I am now putting the beads on a stringing wire and crimping the wire to the first ring and last ring of the bracelet. It’s an extra precaution like a safety catch on bracelets. I haven’t lost any beads since.