Many Rings Rule!
Part 2 of 2
Last December, I didn't actually review Rebeca's Mojica's first book,  Chained: Create Gorgeous Chain Mail Jewelry One Ring at a Time. The past post was all about how a jewelry book got published.

Her book deserves a review as Rebeca has done much to advance this branch of jewelry making. It's growing in popularity because the innovations and creativity of chain maille artisans like Rebeca have won over the people who thought chain maille as too masculine or too dull.

Although she does use beads in a few of the projects, Rebeca's forte is the extensive use of color via anodized metals. Not only do the design possibilities jump, the colored rings are like an in-built color coding system!


She uses Tool Magic (see link below) to coat the tips of her tools which allows her "to work faster without worrying about marring the rings or scratching off the color." I would add it's essential if you work with anodized metals especially aluminum because you can easily nick the coating no matter how careful or slowly you work.  I have some anodized rings from years ago which were abandoned in favor of solid metals because of this problem. So I finally bought Tool Magic and now love it!

Japanese Cross Pendant
Chained is the most thorough chain maille book I have ever come across.  Unlike other authors, Rebeca included imperial units for ring dimensions. Some chain maillers like myself seem to remember 3/16" easier than 4.8 mm! She not only rated the projects by skill level as many books do, but she also gave helpful time expectations. How to clean and care for chain maille jewelry including colored rings?  She's got that covered too.

Japanese
Every step she illustrates is well thought out. When I attempted the Japanese cross pendant design, I spotted what I thought was a missed short-cut only to discover Rebeca broke it down to more than one step because it was much easier that way. Rebeca wanted her first book to be the definitive book for getting started with chain maille jewelry. I'd say she achieved her objective!

The choice of weaves, detailed instructions and loads of tips and tricks showed me the book was written by someone who can teach and teaches well. Rebeca concentrates on 4 easy types of weaves - Japanese, Byzantine, Helm and Coiled - with many variations of each.

Helm
These weaves are suitable for beginners and yet the more complex variations are inspiring enough for advanced ring weavers. I particularly loved the pretty combination weaves. The coiled chapter especially requires the use of many rings to give the illusion of coiled wire.

Coiled

Unlike most book authors whose designs are only for personal use, Rebeca has generously allowed readers to use any of the designs to sell anywhere. I might well take her up on that as her book has been a wonderful source of inspiration for me.

I didn't have one of the ring sizes and had to adapt the design. Therefore here is the prototype of my interpretation of the Japanese cross pendant appropriately entitled "Kisses". I'll be wearing this pair soon, Rebeca!


Disclosure

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Original Post by THE BEADING GEM
Jewelry Making Tips - Jewelry Business Tips