Japanese Polyhedron Nox Earrings - A Stargate-Inspired Chainmaille Creation

The other day, I was going through my long list of to-do's and one item sticks out again and again is "make more Japanese polyhedron earrings", with a big star marked right next to the note.  Hum....  right, I've always liked the architectural flair of this weave, can be elongated and soft, or very squarish and sturdy, it is fun and sprite-like, versatile and charismatic, shall we have a pair of these in shiny sterling?  With some colorful highlights, maybe?

These may look like the ones I made before, but this new design is a very tight and sturdy structure, each forming a bipyramid of sterling silver on the outer rim and natural titanium on the interior rim, held together closely with rainbow anodized niobium rings.

Oh yes, I made the niobium rings myself from raw wire, they're hand coiled, anodized with multiple colors, cut on my Ringinator, then tumbled to clean up the burs and residues from the cutting process.

I then painstakingly built the bipyramid shape with several different pliers, because the rings interaction was so tight, the sequence of weaving matters a lot.  A missed step often means a marred ring that had to be tossed and replaced :-(

But the results are very satisfying!!  My favorite is the way you can see through the polyhedron to take in the views and colors on the far side!  How neat is that?!

Oh and yes, the long, wing-like dangles are the result of an afternoon of moping around, thinking, sketching, testing, nearly giving up a few times, going back on the net surfing for ideas, heading out to the back yard watching hummingbirds zooming through my patio chasing one another..... then, a light bulb came on:-)

And I'm very happy with them!

These colorful and whimsical earrings are also available for purchase in my online studio.

~~~~~ So, why "Nox"? ~~~~~

Well, the fact that I made these on a Sunday afternoon may have something to do with it...  You see, I have a habit of catching the reruns of Stargate SG-1 on TV:-)  No, the Nox episode wasn't on any specific Sunday, but as I was watching the show and doing my "user testing" on these earrings, the way they swing, I see the shiny rings flicker on and off, echoing the little bling on the dangle, they all reminded me of the Nox.  Hence, the name!!

Très GSG

I name this one "Très GSG", because a typical GSG has 2 rows, this has 3 rows, so "very" GSG:-).   I know, the earrings look diamond-shaped, but they are none the less still GSG 3-by-3.

This set is a long way coming.  It's designed and made specifically for my dear friend Milly, who likes the colors of my Technicolor Bumble Bees bracelet, but wants a pattern bit more dense, about 3/4" wide, and suitable for daily wear.

Knowing our "day job" tends to require much time at the keyboard and frequent trips thru airport check points, I ruled out any rope or chunky pattern.  And it needs to be flexible, definitely flat in profile, enough weight so that you'll notice in case it's off the wrist, but not too much that you're constantly reminded of it being there.  Right, so that ruled out Dragonscale also.

After much net-surfing, I eventually decided to go with the vertical pattern of Half Persian 3-in-1 Sheet 6, which is essentially GSG.  Come to think of it, I suppose this is more of a GSG 3-columns, than 3-rows?  Anyway, the main body of bracelet and earrings was straight forward to weave, but the whole set took me a while to fit all the details together.  The fish toggle is one of a dozen incarnations before I settle on this version.  Nope, there is no religious connotations, at least I wasn't thinking of or planning on any such thing. I just prefer the double twist at the fish tail which matches the GSG pattern.  The wave toggle bar fits nicely with the fish motif; when the wave bar is perpendicular (to the fish body), it looks like a fish resting among sea weeds; when it's parallel, the fish is swimming in water.  OK, that's my story, and I'm sticking to it:-)

Specs:

Bracelet: All niobium (Nb) rings from TRL, WD 1.2mm, ID 6.6mm, except for rings at clasp points are 1.2mm, ID 3.83mm.  Toggle is handmade in 1.6mm full-hard Nb wire.  Bracelet width is just under 3/4"; total length is 7 1/2" while clasped on.

Earrings: Rings are grade 5 titanium (Ti) also from TRL, WD 1.2mm, ID 6.2mm. I switched to Ti rings for earrings because they are much lighter than Nb, easier on ears.  Ear wires are handmade from 1.0mm Nb wire, dotted with green AB seed beads.

The whole set was put together while in Nb's natural color, then anodized after all assembled. Here's what the bracelet looked like before the color bath.  A subtle, understated, almost hematite kind of color.  Not bad, huh?  I really liked it.  My SIL said, out of all the metal colors she'd seen so far, this is by far her favorite.  Yep, same here.  Maybe I'll make another one and leave it in its natural dark gray...

Interesting note on the earrings, the grade 5 Ti rings are anodized without chemical etching, so the colors are more muted than the Nb ear wires or the bracelet.  Nothing that affects the final appearance, just a fun fact, for geeks like me:-)