Mobius Ball??

A few days ago, I made a flower knot, or at least that's how I saw it, since it's more cushy than a flower weave, making it more of a knot. Any way, today, I came across a page on Maille Artisans International League that says there's a name for this little flower. It's called a "mobius ball" and the web page mentioned this is a "patented" weave. Not sure what that means... I never saw that web page before making this flower knot (yes, I call it a flower knot); as far as I know, this is just a version of the good old flower/rosette weave, what's there to patent about? Is there a patent for the flower weave?

I'm all for protecting intellectual properties; but how does this work???

King's Maille Bracelet

I've been reading a lot on chainmaille; never thought I'd be so addicted to this ancient technique. It's a science all on its own.

So here's my 2nd chainmaille project. I learned this weave is called King's maille. Out of so many weave patterns, this caught my eye again and again for those big double rings. Yesterday, I set out to test it, tried several gauges, finally settled on 16 ga (all 8.5 feet of it!) with 10 mm ID. The toggle and the rosette counter-weight are both 14 ga, and the various connector rings are from 18 ga to 14 ga, all handmade. Final length is 7 1/4" and 1" wide.It fits on my right wrist perfectly, lays flat when I rest my hand on a desk, and doesn't flop around too much. I'm very pleased. Also tried threading in the toggle bar from the front and the back; definitely treading from the back produces a smoother look, although the counter-weight is not always effective, maybe it can be a bigger rosette. But all in all, it came out pretty much like what I expected.

Then I took out my first chainmaille bracelet to compare to this new bracelet, just to see if I have improved, or not. That's when I noticed something:Duh! They're the same weave! Do you see that? The main difference between the two are the sizes and shapes of rings. What a revelation for me! I've read that the Aspect Ratio is the most critical part of chainmaille, but this time, it's really sinking in. It's a lot like bead weaving where the same stitch when used with different sizes and shapes of beads, can mutate into a whole new look! Boy, I learned something new (kind of) today!

Check out more images here.

The Sun, the Moon, and the Stars

OK, so the sun is not all that obvious, but you get the idea.

It started with the moon. Actually, I was going for a heart shape pendant, but the wire wasn't long enough, so I stopped short half way and turned it into a crescent moon. Then it sat on my desk for a long time, until last night when I read on the net something about the brightest star of this month hangs just off the moon. Well, there it is! And yes, it'll hold your eyeglasses nicely.

This is a piece done with only wire bending. Now I look at the final result, the connectors seem to add too much distraction to the simple idea. As a prototype, it'll do. But I'll try this again, with fused silver rings.

Time to get some butane refill for the micro torch...

Flower Knot and Beaded Bead Cap

I didn't start out wanting to make a flower weave; I was experimenting with Kingsmaille without the correct AR. The test wasn't successful, needless to say. But, never wanting to waste any perfectly good old jump rings, I threaded them one after another, and turned it into a very slinky-like flower weave; it even plays like a slinky.

If I keep on threading more rings, it should be able to hold its shape more like a standard flower weave, then maybe I can connect several of them together for a bracelet. Humm, let me think about this ...

Over the last few weeks, I've been seeing many handmade bead caps; some with all wire, some with beads. I really like the woven bead cap by Iza Malczyk, and the Periwinkle Bead Cap by Shaktipaj. Being able to make my own bead cap sounds real cool. Today, I sat down to figure out how these ladies do it. Here's my first guess. What do you think?

If my guess is right, the wave pattern is similar to African Helix, which tends to be very flexible when done with beading thread. But with wire, it easily retains the shape but still allows for some pushing and prodding to coach the beads and coils into place. I'm liking this a lot; it definitely has potentials for growth! Will make a few more of these in different sizes, to build my own bead cap stash!

More images here.

Silver Elephant Hair Bracelet

Many years ago, I saw a bracelet called Elephant Hair Bracelet in San Gabriel Bead Company, the most fabulous bead store in SoCal. The bracelet looked really cool, didn't seem too difficult to make, but I never got around to try one, until today... I was surfing the net for ideas (don't even remember what I was looking for...) Then this bracelet popped up.

Making a long story short, I found this free tutorial online, read it a few times, couldn't figure out where the hack slots "K" and "W" are... Anyway, this is what I came up with using all 24ga craft wire. The knots don't look too tidy, still need some practice, but they work, making the bracelet adjustable from 6" to 8". It's pretty quick to make, and fun to wear too.

More images here.

Angie's Bangle

I've been working on this bangle for my sister Angie off and on for many months. I like the coiled bangle style from Eni Oken, but I also like asymmetrical, almost chaotic designs with a crazy wrap like Lisa Niven Kelly's. This is what I came up with late last week.

It has a memory wire core, strung on it are polished rose quartz nuggets and silver beads. 26ga SS (half-hard) wires are first wrapped around and crisscrossing each bead and between beads randomly, then a twisted wire follows similar pattern, finally a double wire which is coiled over with 28ga AS wire, plus many, many tiny silver, jade, amethyst, and glass beads. The clasp is handmade with 14ga wire. Total length of wires: 9' of 26ga, 13' of 28ga, and 1.5" of 14ga.

I like the way each core bead looks like a little present all wrapped up with silver threads, while the overall color scheme gives a hint of spring blossoms, perfect for the holidays. A brilliant bangle, wouldn't you say?

Couple of more images here.

Chain Maille Bracelet - Take 2

Did I mention I'm hooked on chain maille right now?

Here's the same chain maille design as the one for my brother Steve but in a smaller size:
35 big rings in 14ga SS, 5mm ID, flattened and dimpled; 138 20ga SS jump rings, 4mm ID; clasp and 2 rings (one as catch ring) are also 14ga; total length 6 7/8", width is just under 1/2".



This bracelet went a little faster than the first one, but not by much, the most time consuming part is still making jump rings since I'm trying different sizes again. Last time, it felt like throwing darts in the dark (about a total 8 hours of darkness); this second one has better clues to follow, but still just clues.

So here's my question:
If one insists on making everything from scratch, any handmade jewelry will take longer time to complete, and will most likely cost more than what the market will bear. But does the idea of "handmade" jewelry or the appreciation of "craftsmanship" carry less weight if we swap in some machine-made elements into the final piece? I hope not, cuz I love working with wires, but I'm not about to saw silver nuggets and draw wires myself, been there, done that, got myself burned a few times, didn't enjoy it. So I'm going to continue buying silver wires for my "handmade" jewelry. But if I go a step further and buy those nice and neat jump rings that are machine-made, and make another bracelet out of them, is it still handmade, or is it just "hand-woven", or does the combination of machine and human make it some kind of Cylon Skin Job (hee hee)?

Wrapped Rings

What do you do with 7 or 8" of scrap thick wires? Turn them into rings.

This is from a piece of 8" 12ga AS scrap wire. Considering Rio Grande charged me almost $7 a foot for these wires, every millimeter counts. So here it is, a simple wrapped ring, size 8, 3/4" at the longest points, comfortable to wear. Surface textured with small dimples from the round end of hammer and mesh imprints from a needle file. The dimples give it sparkles; the mesh imprints tone it down here and there.

This is another piece of scrap wire; 7" 14ga SS. Similar concept, with squiggles this time. I ran needle file all over the surface to produce a muted shine. More dainty, still fun to wear. I can see many other possibilities with this technique...

More images here.

My First Chain Maille Bracelet

It's real interesting how I went from struggling with making jump rings to becoming addicted (almost) with chain maille. I'm not saying I've mastered making jump rings (still far from it), but from testing and making all sizes of rings with all kinds of wire, I'm starting to understand how the tiniest changes in wire thickness and ring interior diameters (i.e., aspect ratios) can do to their final look and feel.

This is my most sincere appreciation (otherwise known as "copy") of a bracelet from Scott David Plumlee's designs. So it's not exactly the same, but it's my best guess, for now. This is for my brother's medic alert tag; don't know if it'll fit since I haven't seen the tag yet... I'm almost secretly wishing it won't... cuz I really like it, for myself :-))

Materials: 14ga SS for big rings, 16ga SS for small rings, 12ga AS for clasp. The whole thing weighs a ton!

If I ever get to make another one of these, I'd try oval shape rings for the small rings and lighten upon hammering the big rings (oh, the operative word here being "if").

UPDATE, 12/9/2008:
Good news, it fits Steve's left wrist with little slack, almost too little; so I added one more link which make the total length 8 1/8". It also goes with his medic alert tag nicely which is on a black double cord. Tumbled the bracelet overnight; it's looking shiny and pretty!

More images here.

Fat Coils

These cute wire beads have been around for a long time, and I've made a few over the years. But most of them are longer than wider in proportion, not till I saw one by Linda Lemoine-Vios at San Gabriel Bead Company. I thought it was a wonderful idea to have it the same height and width, making it more of a diamond/bicone shape.

Here's my first attempt. It's all craft wire: 24" of 24ga, onto 16" of 22ga, onto 10" of 18ga, the double eye pin was an after thought, using 18ga scrap wire. These lengths are not quite right yet, making the bead lopsided, and defnitely too small.

I'm thinking maybe start with twisting 26ga to 36", coil over 20" of 22ga, onto 10" of 18ga, then center on a hammered 14ga single eye pin.

Isn't experimenting fun?

Medic Alert Bracelet

I saw a bracelet by Scott David Plumlee in Creative Silver Chains and thought this may work for my brother's medic alert tag; it's understated, flexible, unobtrusive, and still masculine. Looked up the artist's website; lots of cool stuff there, but I need to stay focused... on just this one bracelet for my brother.

It took me quite a while, but I think this will do for my purpose:

and the flip side

I'm guessing 18 or 20 for the small rings, 14 or 16 hammered flat for the large rings...

Super-Sized Knot

Did I mention these Danish Knots are addictive? They are deliciously addictive :-)

This is made of 26" of 12 gauge AS, the ID of each coil was 15mm. They really should have been 15.92mm, but I don't have anything that size in my household... which means the 3rd coil took some persuasion to thread through. Good thing this is dead soft wire, fanning out the coils wasn't too difficult.

This shows how big they are:On the left is the 12ga jumbo knot; on the right is the 16ga baby. When I first finished the 16ga one, I thought this is great, it's bigger, sturdier, in better condition than yesterday's prototype. I was plenty happy already.

Then I read about Aspect Ratio (AR) in last issue of Step by Step Wire, in the books I borrowed from the library, and online, of course. I thought why not go BIG, like 12ga big? I worked out the total length of wire needed and the mandrel size. Making this knot took little time, relatively speaking... But, wait till you feel the bundle in your hand, it's a BIG boy all right!

Things learned from making the jumbo knot:

1. Using dead soft wire definitely helps in shaping the knot. Half hard was too springy.
2. When fanning out coils, start sreading from outter rings, one ring at a time in small increment, go around all 3 coils evenly.
   
3. Giving a bit more overlap on both cut ends of coils allows better locking of the coils inside the knot; about 1/4" on each end for the 12ga knot.

More images here.

Now I just need to find a good home for these little darlings.

UPDATE, 12/3/2008:
I'm keeping this one:-)

Danish Knot

I learned to make this little bundle of wire from here. Cute by itself or used as a component.
They are fun to make, almost addictive. I experimented with different gauges of wire and sizes of mandrels. This is the 3rd try.

Here's a comparison:

The one on the left is the first try, too loose; on the right is the 2nd, too tight, couldn't even get the final coil to thread thru. The middle one is the third try, which is "a charm" indeed.



The tutorial in the link above has a chart showing the wire gauges and ring's inside diameters (ID).

When I look at my 3rd knot closely, I can see the inside of each coil needs to accommodate at least the thickness of 6 wires, plus some wiggle room. This is one of those projects where the ratio between wire thickness and ring ID matters, kind of like fancy chain maille, but not as finicky.

This reminds me of the pure wool logo.

**** Update. April 17, 2014 ****

  

I'm very happy to see many of my readers finding this post worthy of their visits.  Thank you so much!!  If you have any questions, please drop a note or leave a comment here; I'll do my best to help.  BTW, I did make all these Danish knots (as well as all the handcrafted pieces on my blog site), and I did take all these photos myself, therefore I do hold the right to these photos and their uses; you're more than welcome to share with back links to my posts; and in the case if you do ask to use my photos with credits, I'd most likely be thrilled and even help you spread the words!!  So, I'd appreciate it if you don't just download them and repost them as your own in your translated "tutorials" or web pages.  That's just not cool :-(

Thank you!!

Slinky Ring

This is a prototype for a slinky style ring. Several wraps of wire on a ring mandrel, tie down the back, add beads to the top. Simple enough to make, easily adapted for fancier looks.

I learned a few things:

If the thin wire is not covering the whole ring, it needs to stay on top and/or bottom of ring; sporadic wrapping on left or right side of ring makes it scratchy to wear, very uncomfortable.

Beads with a flat side and center drilled work better on this ring.

Whenever possible, make the beads sit on top of two wires; for this reason, it's better to use half hard wire and slightly hammer the ring wire; this not only hardens the wire, it also provides a flatter surface for the beads to stay put. For pratice here, I used all craft wires: 18ga for ring, 28ga for wrapping, a SS bead and 3 freshwater pearls.

More images here.