This technique is called herring bone weaving. I looked at a few pieces and tried to replicate it. I need some nylon jawed pliers to smooth out the wire, but the weave I've got down.

Viking knit commission

Here are some pictures of a viking knit necklace I was commissioned to make. It measures about 17 inches long and 1/4 inch wide. I made the end caps and the S clasp from wider electrical wire and the viking chain fro phone wire. I had to flatten the S clasp with pliers since I don't have a hammering block yet.

Even more Crafty Updates

On the advise of a friendly friend I am going to start posting works in progress or bits I've been tinkering with along with the mostly finished pieces.

To that end here are a few things I've been playing with.
This is actually a hunk of aluminum I pulled from the bottom of my Dad's woodstove in his garage. We were seeing if we could melt glass in a pot inside the fire and it turns out the pot we thought was steel was aluminum. Consequently the pot melted and the glass did not. I pulled several nuggets of aluminum from the bottom of the stove and polished them up. I played around with some wire wrapping and wrapped this one.



This is just a spiral I hammered out and thought would make a neat bookmark.



This is a wire wrapping project that I couldn't figure out how to finish. I didn't know if I wanted to make it a necklace or make another for earrings.

More Copper Crafts

I'm pretty sure you can make any of these pictures bigger, sorry about the quality I took them with the laptop's camera.

This first bracelet it simply a chainmail double spiral. I made it using alternating pairs of 12 gauge copper wire from old electrical wire and some plain galvanized steel. It looks very rope-like and has a great heft to it.



This bracelet I made using a technique I just learned called Viking Knit. This process takes considerably longer than chainmail, but gives yields a very lovely, almost serpentine, rope. I'm not sure if I'm going to try to sell it or not so I left one end unfinished and put a wire cap on the other. I used phone wire which is around 26 gauge, for the majority of it, then some electrical wire for the end cap.




Let me know what you think.

check this out

So, I was looking for a music box for Erin, and the first site I click on turns out to be some pretty trippy shit. check it out. http://www.tokyoplastic.com/musicbox.html

Small Crafting update.

I made some new earrings and a new bracelet. Actually I've made more than that but these are all I've taken pictures of.

This bracelet is made from an old piece of copper pipe. I flattened it and shaped it on an old piece of railroad track, then bent around and filed the ends to smooth out the opening. It's a prototype so I didn't really experiment with decorations.


These earrings are made out of electrical wire and a bead from the bead shop. I just shaped them a little and pressed the wire together to keep it lined up.

I have been crafty

I have been working a lot with copper lately, since I can get it for free. Mostly I have been making bracelets, but soon I will be working on earrings :)


Here are several shots of copper and steel chainmail bracelets I've made.

This one is thicker copper links, note my happy little hand made toggle on the left.


This one is made of the same copper paired with galvanized steel. I love the contrast of the shiny orange copper and the matte blue steel. And this picture was well placed too!


Here is a shot of these two side by side.


These next two are very similar to the previous two, except I used thinner copper and steel. The steel in this bracelet is stainless, so it is much shinier.


These next shots are of some braided copper bracelets I made.

As you can see one is a very loose braid and the other is pretty tight.


I bound the ends with smaller wire to give it character and to cover any sharp ends.


The loose braid reminds me of vines growing on a tree.


The tight braid is very round and happy.




In addition to the metal work, I have also been making some hats. I made a frog hat--which I forgot to get pictures of--and I've been developing an Ushanka type hat.

Here is my lovely assistant Bunny, showing off the prototype with the ear and neck flaps up and down.


Here I am, doing about the same thing, with my kettlebell for some added Rusky flair.



Finally, here is the kettlebell with its protective Ushanka