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Tuesday, August 30, 2011

Chained up on Maille.... all in glass

I know... I know.... I have ten million other things I should be doing right now.  I should be getting some stock for the local shop, making murrini for Affordable and packing to go to the glass studio for Loren Stumps classes, but nope..... none of the above!


I am feeling guilty and a bit naughty too, but I have had an idea perculating about in my head for quite a long time and decided to try it out..... Glass links Chain Maille.  I aware it has been done before (a lady by the name of Kim Edwards http://www.lonetreestudio.com/chainmail.html does some absolutely bogsmacking work in this style) but I wanted to try out some byzantine chain rather than my usual dongle-y ones.  Here it is... it worked quite well and was made in boro (because I am too much of a lazy slug to try this in gorgeous italian soft glass).  I just used 3mm glass stringers to make the links.... some closed and some open that I close in the flame after putting the pattern together.  It was fun, but fiddly as buggery as you can imagine.  I don't think this will be a common thing for me to work on to be honest, but at least I can know I tried it.... its all about the fun.

 On a slightly dissapointing front, my kiln has been playing up quite a bit over the last few days and after trolling about online and finally downloading the manual for the controller I have discovered the thermocouple thingo is stuffed....... aarrrgh!  I am really hopeful my extremely handy and helpful husband Leo can wave a magic wand and fix it up, or worse case go to the electronic shop and buy a bit of wire or something to sort it out, but we will have to see.  Lucky I have my new kiln to collect in about a month......YAHOO!

I have been playing about a LOT with my bead soup.  It is so gorgeous that I don't want to bugger it up and are probably trying to get a little too fancy rather than think about the form of the thing...... I am going to zen out, watch bridesmaids (the movie) and see what comes of some random beading then.....  Nat :-)

6 comments:

  1. Completely Love the glass chainmaille, it looks soooo beautiful!

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  2. What a great idea and what a great work!
    I love it too!

    Greetings,
    Michaela

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  3. Wow, pretty! but it even LOOK like it would be full of aggravation to make >< lol
    And yes, I'm doing the same with my Bead Soup. It's lain on part of my table spread out for over a week now and I keep looking and playing with the bits, sketching out ideas, sorting them into piles... but having made anything yet. I made myself take a couple beads to make into an earring but stopped half way through because I didn't like it >.< lol The prettier the beads the harder it is to make yourself USE them for fear of not doing them justice.

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  4. thanks heaps ladies. The glass maille was a bit in the butt, but it comes out looking really cool so sort of worthwhile.

    I have got my bead soup peice done now, its amazing what a bit of jackie Chan movie can do to the bead mojo!

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  5. Wow...what a lot of work, it's lovely.
    Can not wait to see your bead soup. I ended up making two pieces after the beads sat in front of me for about a week, they would not motivate me.

    Thanks for following...

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  6. Oh wow this is seriously cool! I've always wanted to try chain maille bit it never never would have occured to me to do it in glass. Brilliant :-)

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