Hello again,
Welcome to August’s issue of The Jewelry and Poly News. Due to a lovely hot summer, making polymer clay jewelry has not been possible. I have therefore spent my holidays making chain mail and macramé jewelry. Spending the summer camping these two techniques were easy to do, since they didn’t require lots of tools or space. And, I must admit that creating macramé jewelry has been a real challenge at times, when I ended up with my strings on the wrong side of the pattern. But, it is a very exiting jewelry making technique. One you can make as simple or as complex as you like, with only a few, simple knots.

I also made chain mail with colored aluminum rings for the first time, and I was positively surprised both by their weight, beautiful colors and their price. You can get lots and lots of rings for only a few dollars.

I wish you all happy holidays with lovely weather,( but also some bad weather where you can spend lazy days creating lovely jewelry.)

Enjoy!

Anne Cecilie

In This Issue

• Make A Light And Lacy Macrame Bracelet
• Make A Pair Of Light And Lacy Macrame Earrings
• Blue Dragon Back Chain Mail Necklace
• Use Helm Chain To Make A Trojan Chain mail Necklace
• Macrame Bracelet - Do Magic With Double Half Hitches And Beads - Part One
• Macrame Bracelet - Do Magic With Double Half Hitches And Beads - Part Two

New Tutorials

Make A Light And Lacy Macrame Bracelet

If you like something light and lacy, this macramé bracelet may be just for you. I have chosen not to make it symmetrical when the colors are concerned, but if you like it to be alike on both sides, just swap the colors around as you please. Being fairly new to macramé, I have spent some time to search for the right type of cord. I wanted to make a micro macramé bracelet and a cord thin enough to pass through seed beads #11 was what I was looking for. I eventually ended up with thin crochet cord in cotton. see the rest of the tutorial

Make A Pair Of Light And Lacy Macrame Earrings

These macrame earrings are lovely and are made in less than half an hour. When it comes to the beads used, I fell head over heal in love with the large pink ones. I usually buy my beads online, as the selection in Norway is somewhat limited, but in a Panduro store in my hometown I found these Czech rocailles #6 beads. They are rounder in shape than Japanese seed beads which make them perfect for macramé see the rest of the tutorial

Blue Dragon Back Chain Mail Necklace

Many chain mail patterns have vividly creative names, like the one in this tutorial. It is called Dragon Back, a name that isn’t so out of the blue, as the center ridge of the chain looks a bit like a dragon’s spine.

The pattern looks complicated, but is not so difficult to make. Like most chain mail patterns it may take a while to get it right from the start, but once you are over that bit, it gets easier. It is based on the very easy European 4-1 weave. To get it flexible enough to drape gracefully around the neck, it should be made with rings that have an aspect ratio (AR) of 5. see the rest of the tutorial

Use Helm Chain To Make A Trojan Chain mail Necklace

Helm chain is one of my favorite chain mail weaves. It is not only beautiful, but is easy to make as well. You can make it with one row, like in this tutorial or as sheets where you link several rows together. You can alter it slightly by using different sized rings or different colored rings.

There is only one important thing to remember about this chain mail weave, and that is that the smallest rings must fit comfortably inside the larger ones. If they do, you do not have to pay much attention on the Aspect ratio of the rings, but can combine sizes, metals and colors as you please.

Helm chain is sometimes called Parallel chain, so you may sometimes bump into that name instead of Helm chain. But the weave is the same and, as I mentioned above: easy to do. see the rest of the tutorial

Macrame Bracelet - Do Magic With Double Half Hitches And Beads - Part One

This macrame bracelet is made with horizontal and vertical double half hitches. It never cease to amaze me how such simple knots can be used to create something as beautiful as macrame jewelry. By knotting the strings in various orders, you can make stunning and very intricate patterns.

On my quest to learn about macrame, I found sites with beautiful looking macrame jewelry, but not a single tutorial on how to make them. There were of course tutorials on how to do the different knots, and lots and lots on how to make friendship bracelets, but none of the more complex looking ones. I found this strange, but trying to make tutorials about my own macrame jewelry soon gave me the answer to why so few had done it before me: It is simply too complicated to explain step by step, as you may have to do side steps throughout the knotting to have it all match with beads and colors and the orders of the strings. You should think it would be easy to do first one half of the macramé bracelet and then just copy it and do the other side. But it simply wasn’t that easy.

see the rest of the tutotorial

Macrame Bracelet Part Two