persian chain templates

I came very close to making nothing at all yesterday. Well, strictly speaking, I did make nothing on the calendar day. But I woke up in the middle of the night, and figured out how to get a couple of persian chain templates started, easier than when I tried and tried to get the pink chain begun. Then I went back to sleep. Since it wasn't Monday morning yet, I'm counting it.

Then when it was a sunny Monday, I did two more little lengths of persian with smaller rings. I photographed the process for the tutorial below. So I made not only a set of chain templates for the toolbox, but an educational blog post too!

tutorial - starting persian chain

A full-persian chain is a ratbag (stealing a word from one of my favorite authors) to get started. I find the beautiful CGI tutorials at M.A.I.L. fairly useless. Once you have eight rings together, it is stable, and easy to continue. However, holding on to the six rings and keeping them in position to put in the seventh and eighth is pretty much impossible.

The best solution to this problem is to keep short lengths of several sizes of persian as templates upon which to start new chains. I have had a few, but they disappear, or get used in a chain, or something. So last night I set out to make a set, and this morning I continued, and photographed the method that I have found most satisfactory for getting started.

You need several jumprings in addition to those for the template section itself. In this case, I have copper 18-gauge 7/32” rings for the chain. Then I have two black rings, 18-gauge, 1/4”. These can just be the same rings as the chain. At any rate, they should be close in size, so that the chain rings can neither slip over them nor through them. A single very small ring is needed to hold the two black foundation rings in place -- here, a 1/8” pink one. Then there should be several additional rings of any size to make an easy-to-hang-on-to handle -- or this might just be a length of wire crimped on to the small ring.



Interlock the two black rings, and fasten them together with the small pink one. Put a chain of several links on the pink ring to hold onto it easily.

Arrange the two black rings at right angles. Hook a copper ring over the inner one on either side of the crossing.









Put a third copper ring through the two, and up over the outside of them, but through the  outer of the black rings. (I am speaking of ‘inner’ and ‘outer’ black rings based on their positions at the lower crossing, where the copper rings are added, not at the top where they cross through the pink ring.)








The fourth copper ring goes opposite the third. You now have one complete persian link, stabilized by the crossed black links. Start the second persian link by adding two copper rings across through the inner rings of the previous link, between the parallel outer ones.












Add the next two rings through these, up over the outer top curve, through the outer rings of the previous link.


Your persian chain is now well started. Keep going.

old familiar weaves and new ones

I decided it was time, as the new year began, to learn some new chain weaves. Almost everything I have done recently is persian, one hour less sleep, or byzantine, with a few forays into half-persian (snake chain), möbius flowers, simple 2-in-2 when I’m in a hurry, and of course european 4-in-1 for flat areas.









I started looking for weaves that fit the new aluminum rings I got from The Ring Lord. I tried elf-weave, but it was a mess. I thought I had gotten past the initial falling-apart stage, but it never seemed to develop a pattern, just looked like a heap of rings. Then I tried sweet pea.
The AR 4.1 rings I had (18-gauge swg 3/16” anodized aluminum) were said to be the perfect size for this. But I thought they were a tad too large. The inner rings seemed to have too much play, and not to line up well. So I tried with some of my copper 18-gauge awg 5/32” rings, which are a shade tighter, AR 4. They work. I have to make more rings, but I made a little section of 8 “peas,” and I think it will do.



Still looking for uses for my colorful rings, I looked up DNA chain. Once I got straight in my head how the little rings go on, that worked well. Though I believe my 1/8” green rings could afford to be smaller, 3/32” sized. You can do it with all the small rings closed, and all the large ones open. It’s kind of tedious, closing all those 1/8” 20-gauge rings. But after desultorily working on it for over a week, I have a 24” chain, plus two short bits for earrings.

I am going to make it a lariat, with a stone-weighted end passing through a sterling loop with a hook in it, to be fastened wherever the wearer wishes. I hoped to use one of my new amethyst discs as the stone, but the color just isn’t right, especially in sunlight. So I think it will be a construction of an aventurine zuni-type bear in a silver frame. Got to get the soldering-fu going.