Sunday, September 13, 2020

Back to chainmaille. . .

I have been so busy for months now setting up the goimagine.com shop, getting to know the new platform, re-shooting photos for piles of stuff, trying out new art ideas, and on and on.  It has been pretty productive I have made lots of new art, I have nearly everything listed on goimagine that I want, but I had not made new chainmaille in months. 😕

Literally, the last new chainmaille I made was back in mid-June. 

And to be honest that didn't go exactly to plan, the centipede pattern I was trying didn't work as my rings are not the right proportion so I ended up with a variant.  

Now don't misunderstand me, I do think my variant is cool as heck, all double layered and unique, But it is not what it should be and it's not really what I had in mind. 😏 It's hard to be disappointed in something that turned out so pretty but that's where my crazy shows because I was, disappointed. 

However, even disappointing myself cannot keep me from playing with my rings forever.  Oddly it was the arrival of piles of new art supplies that turned me back to my rings. ~LOL~  I know I'm weird like that. 😇  I ordered some frames mainly because I got a good deal and I thought having the art framed might help it sell, I mean people don't always know what to do with a canvas by itself.  Unfortunately, I could only buy a few because even on super sale frames are expensive.  So I have 6 frames and literally 101 paintings to choose from. 😵  I have no idea how I'm going to decide which pieces to frame, the flag collection, the wood words collection, some of the older pieces? ?  😟  I just don't know, so I changed gears.

I ran back to my safety zone, playing with rings where RainbowMaille started.  When I was pulling out all my different colors I found a bag of odd ball larger rings that I ordered a while back.  I had wanted a slightly larger size for a pattern I wanted to try that required 3 sizes of rings, for all these years I have only had 2 sizes of anodized aluminum.  I know many are shocked when they realize I have managed to learn/make 16 patterns and variants with only 2 ring sizes.  😁  However when I ordered the "larger rings" I screwed up and bought the wrong size for what I had in mind at the time and was disappointed in myself when they arrived.  I just kind of chucked them in the drawer and sighed not knowing what to do with them as they were too big and all wrong proportionately. 

Sitting at my bench this past week, making a bracelet in a variant in new colors (I plan to gift it to someone) I started to contemplate the odd over-sized rings.

 
This is what I came up with, they remind me of quilt squares and now my brain is on fire trying to figure out what all I can do with them.  I like the idea of a single one in a diamond orientation as a pendant but I think I want it on a leather cord not a chain, as I don't like mixing chain patterns really sometimes it just looks weird. They would be great as earrings, I think they will fit on that barrette bases.

In the bracelet context I started debating whether they should be square and connected double corners, if it is then it's cuff-like and would need a sliding bar clasp.  They could be attached in a diamond orientation that makes it a bit weaker in appearance in the single attachment point but I can always triple up on the rings and it would be secure, although a narrow attachment leads me back to the standard lobster clasp, which leaves the clasp as the weak point. 


My concern there is because with 34 rings in a 1" inch square by the time you put 7-8 of them in a bracelet it could be a bit weighty, although it's anodized aluminum not steel or copper so really how heavy can it get?  Well that depends on if I actually use 7-8 in the bracelet I could always use extra rings maybe a mobius knot in between.  The design is sort of based on Helm's chain so these could be center emblems in a helms based bracelet, there are so so many possibilities.  😳

I ran from the art frames because I was having trouble making decisions and now I've landed myself right back in a pile of decision making. ~sigh~   That's life for ya' 😉


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