A charm bracelet and the first helm chain

Earlier this year I was asked by a friend how much it would cost for me to make a charm bracelet for her daughter's 18th birthday present.

I quoted a price of £50 ish and she agreed that I could go ahead. We agreed that I'd make a byzantine weave bracelet with 6 places to attach charms on it. She already had one charm to attach but it would leave space for more in the future.

Sterling silver byzantine charm bracelet

This photo shows a similar bracelet to that of the one I produced for the friend's daughter. And, luckily for me, the price of the bracelet for the friend was £55 at the time of making, so I think I'm getting better at pricing items.

After spending the last year using mainly byzantine weave in my jewellery I decided it was time to try a few more weaves. There are numerous books out there but none that is considered the 'definitive' chain maille book, instead the best sources of inspiration and instructions are found on the World Wide Web. There I found instructions for a number of different weaves, all of which I like the idea of completing, and so I'm working through some different ones.

Here is a helm chain weave bracelet that I made recently in sterling silver using 1mm thick wire. For this project I made my own jump rings, there are 2 sizes used in the helm weave and I chose to use rings with an inner diameter of 3.5 mm and 6 mm. This weave involves the 'capture' of some of the rings meaning that the captured rings are held between two layers of rings but are not actually through any of the other rings themselves.

Sterling silver helm chain bracelet

This weave hangs well on the wrist and the bracelet is 19.5 cm (7.7") long which is a comfortable length for me.

Next time, clasps!
Anne

Finally remembered name/author of chain maille book

Having finally remembered which chain maille book I meant I thought I'd give you the details. The author is David Scott Plumlee and the first of his books is called "Chain and Bead Jewellery: techniques for creating dimensional necklaces and bracelets". He has since released a second book, and it turns out has two more in the pipeline for this year so I've just pre-ordered both of those. I really like his style of writing and his explanations / instructions I found clear enough to be able to make the items in his book on the first attempt. His website is at DavidChain Jewellery if you are interested.

The Byzantine weave bracelet I showed in the previous two posts came from his first book. As I said earlier I made nearly every piece in the first book and a few pieces from the second book. I'm interested in seeing his next two books as they appear to expand on the techniques he has already shown in the first two, as well as one of the books being about soldering jump rings. Which is something I am very eager to learn!

I have a soldering kit in the house, but so far haven't really used it except to deliberately melt some Precious Metal Clay (PMC) to see how working with it under a torch flame affected it. Melting the bit of PMC into a ball of fine silver was fun I must admit, but didn't really help with learning to solder.

Byzantine weave charm bracelet

PMC is kind of a "side interest" as I'm hoping that by working with it I can start to make fine silver charms to hang from my chain maille bracelets and necklaces.

A bracelet I was commissioned to make as the 18th birthday present for a friend's daughter was a Byzantine weave chain bracelet similar to the one shown in this photo. The larger links are available for hanging the charms from.

Until next time
Anne