I love making chainmaille jewelry, and I love teaching it as well. Full caveat, I sell my own jump rings and kits, so I offer this free chainmaille tutorial to be able to point my customers and students to use as a reference. More tutorials will be forthcoming as my time allows.
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Yesterday, someone purchased this lovely copper byzantine romanov bracelet from my Etsy shop. It was one of my (rare) one of a kind pieces, and also was one of the first chainmaille pieces I made. I must say, I’m quite attached to it and a tear almost came to my eye when I sent it off into the postal system! An entirely different feeling from seeing it languish at craft shows wondering, “Why doesn’t anyone else love it as I do?” — see, I’m fickle and just can’t be pleased, Regardless, I’m sure it will be cherished by it’s lucky new owner!

This is the bracelet – I named it Autumn Splendor. It really is “micro” chainmaille, as the rings used are quite tiny – 20 gauge wire, wrapped around a 2.75mm mandrel, and then precision cut with my saw. The entire piece is really sweet and dainty, especially with the little swarovski crystals I used to compliment the copper colors.
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Since the last 3 posts is probably the MOST I’ve written in my blog for the last YEAR combined, I think I should probably keep up the momentum, don’t you?

Least you think the only thing I’ve been worrying about is copyright issues, I have a craft show in ONE WEEK! And 2 more coming after that, though not all at once, thank goodness.

And.. ahem.. I haven’t really been worrying about it ENOUGH!

EEP!
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Now that I have had a few days to reflect on all of this, and read through other’s comments on copyright in chainmaille, I thought I’d outline my thoughts on the matter.

This has raised interesting and valid copyright questions. If a weave is freely available to all, because it’s a “construction technique”… then at what point does one’s designs become copyrightable?

I think a few of the ones Sara copyrighted qualifies, but not all. One of the copyrighted designs is just a length of the Stepping Stones (SS) weave hanging from a chain. If she states that the SS weave itself is not enforced and belongs to the community, then how could that that particular piece be copyrighted/enforced, if there are no changes made to it other than hanging it from a chain? (I am in no way trying to state that she is attempting to do so, I’m using this recent situation to discuss the copyright issues at hand.)

But I mean really, when we are all using the same weaves as our starting point, at what point after that does ones pieces become copyrightable?
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Since posting about my copyright infringement saga, a number of people have come to my defense, and the entire internet drama has really reached a clamor and come to a head. I want to repost a few things here for the record.

I really don’t want to get into the background of what’s been happening before and after I published my previous post in the mailling community (and I recognize there’s lots of other places other than the maille artisans site) but there is an entire thread on weave restrictions going on here, on the Maille Artisans site, which you can read if you like. I do want to point out a few things in this situation, and in so doing, I’ll just repost a post I made to that thread:
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I find myself in the very interesting position of being accused of copyright infringement.

Specifically, these pieces:

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I have been going a little nutty over bangle bracelets. I can’t tell you how satisfying and fun it is to make a whole slew of them! About a month ago I had a hankering for a nice thick bangle, one with some real weight to it and today I’ve finally listed my Thick Bangle in copper, brass and sterling silver!

I also managed to photograph and list my (normal thickness) brass bangles, which have been sitting patiently on my photography table waiting for their turn in the spotlight, so you can also check those out.

BUT AMY, YOU SAID THERE WAS A GIVEAWAY?!?

Why yes, I’m so glad you asked!

I’m very excited to annouce that Julie who writes Inspired Shares approached me with praise and gushing for my shop, and asked about doing a giveaway for my thick brass bangle and I, drunk with flattery, gleefully agreed! Visit her blog to see how you can enter to win! I love the items and sites she has featured in the past – the Supermarket Sarah post especially – Love that bathroom!

I’ll have some more jewelry news in a few weeks, in time for fall. Summer has flown by!

I recently both crashed my 4Runner, and purchased a Prius. It was needing the time to detailing these events on the blog that has kept me from updating for so long, but no more! You get the short version, so that I can just blog already!

After the first 3 weeks of desperately gliding and pulsing and watching the energy/MPG screen compulsively to try to get my MPG over 50, I’ve settled down into driving fairly normally (at about 45MPG), smugly smiling and shaking my head at the people who BOLT like they’re at a starting line at a light only for me to catch up to them in 10 yards at the next light (NOTE: I WAS TOTALLY THAT GUY WHO BOLTED), and finally, crusing in the HOV lane with giddy delight every day, thanks to the hybrid laws in VA. (NOTE: OH PLEASE RENEW THIS LAW NEXT YEAR TOO KTHANKXBYE)

I sometimes think about my beloved 4Runner, in the scrap yard, airbags deployed, lonely and abandoned. She was a damn fine truck, and I still miss her. She was 10 years old, but we were planning on keeping her until she couldn’t run anymore, which probably could have been another 10 years.

Jewelry Stuff

I have been amassing tools and supplies, but haven’t gotten quite down to the MAKING of all my grandiose visions yet. I bought myself a Big Girl Torch – like the one I use in class, instead of the little creme brule butane one I managed with at home. And have used it exactly once! Some of my ideas have come to fruition though, namely, my eyeball ring, pink moonglow ring, and several samples for classes which I’ll be teaching in the summer — like this dragonscale pendant, and these interupted byzantine earrings. Shiny!

Also purchased: a alphanumeric stamping set and I have been desperately wanting to stamp “ZOMGWTFBBQ” on something. Also: “PWNED” Any other ideas, I’ll take em! Stay tuned!

After a year of moaning and complaining, I am going to have surgery on my foot this Thursday. The irony? My foot feels AWESOME this week, like nothing’s wrong with it. Wish me luck!

After almost two years, James and I are going to get new Google Droid Incredible phones. I am sure I will be very excited for about 3 months and then settle down and do nothing but play Sudoku and deposit checks online with the USAA app (which is pretty much all I do with my iPhone now!)

-amy is going to try to get back into this here journaling stuff

#2? What happened to #1?

Well, I didn’t post for #1. But better late then never, right?

Tonight was class #2 of my silversmithing class at the Art League in Alexandria. We did cuttlefish bone castings, which I have to admit, I wasn’t actually too excited about initially, but now I am SO in love with my piece, I got very excited!

Cuttlefish bones are made up of pretty much just calcium. They are very soft, which makes it easy to carve into it, or press shapes into it. You may have actually seen one – they are good for birds, and are often wired to the side of bird cages for the bird to snack on. We decided on the shape we wanted to cast and then carved/impressed the shape into the soft cuttlefish bone, then fitted another bone over it and cut out a little funnel at the topfor the melted metal to flow into the casting.

Cuttlefish bone also has a natural striation in the material that makes really interesting patterns and textures in the casting.

I decided to make a disc shaped pendant with the spokes of a lego gear emerging out of the disc at an angle. I figured with the wavy striations, it would look like a gear or a snowflake sticking up out of the sand.

You can see the striations quite a bit on the back.

It turned out very well! I wish I had thought to snap a few photos of my carving that I cast the piece from, but I didn’t. After I made my mold, I heated scrap silver in a crucible until it was molten, adding a bit of flux (boric acid I think) to help remove any slag (grossness. and yes, that’s a technical term). Then carefully, but quickly, I poured the molten silver into the void i had carefully carved out.

During the carving, the workshop smelt faintly fishy the whole time, but after pouring hot molten meltal into the bone, there was nothing faint about it. It smelled very badly of nasty burnt fish, blech!

A few students had some bad luck with their molds. Not enough material between the mold and the edge of the bone, and the molten metal would find a way to escape the mold and all was ruined. Once used, the bones could not be used again, as they were burnt to a stinky crisp. I was very happy that my casting turned out wonderfully, much better than I expected.

After retrieving my cooled metal from the quench pot and chucking the stinky remains of the burnt mold, I consulted Nick, our teacher on ways to finish this sucker off. On Nick’s suggestions, I filed the angled gear shape down smooth. This week I will need to decide whether to keep the edges as they are, or perhaps cut away around the edge of the protruding gear and into each little coggy protruberance. I’m not sure which I’ll do.

This photo is it’s current state, after a bit of filing.

Good thing I have a week to think it over!

-Amy

Made this bracelet up over the weekend. It is done in a weave called “Stepping Stones” – very fitting, don’t you think? I tweaked the sizes of the rings to give maximum drama between the “stones” and the smaller rings running around them.

This will be listed in my shop as soon as I can get some good photos taken.

I think when I list it, I will name it, “A River Runs Through It.”

What would you name it? I’d love to hear.