A New Hobby When Not Hunting
Since hunting seasons are mostly over, and the snow is piling up, it never hurts to have a few hobbies to keep yourself busy. The only problem is, I find I have too many. I’ve always enjoyed learning new things and find something I like and learn how to do it.
Having always loved the medieval time period, I have been fascinated with chainmail for a long time. I’ve even played with making it before, but my interest in the process has been sparked again even more than the last time I tried it. Granted, I haven’t made a chainmail shirt or anything, but I do have a wife and daughter who both wanted some jewelry made from it, so that is what I’ve been doing.
The not so great, fuzzy picture above (taking pics of chainmail is tough, if anyone has tips, let me know) is a necklace I did for my wife. I found the pattern on a site that sells jewelry and messed around with putting it together until I got it right. After that, it only took a couple hours to do.
This picture is of a necklace for my daughter done using a Full Persian Weave pattern. It is much more complex, and with my big fingers, a lot more tedious to do. It is only about half done, but when finished it will have a few hours total invested in it as well.
Anyone interested in taking up doing chainmail as a hobby should. It is fun and not that expensive to get started doing. All you need is some wire cutters, some needle nose pliers, some wire, and a few dowel rods or bolts of various sizes to wrap the wire around to make the rings. From there, a search on Google for sites with the basics of creating chainmail or patterns is all it takes to get you going.
A site I’d recommend for starting out is Butted Mail: A Mailmaker’s Guide 4th Edition. It’s a great site with easy to understand instructions and diagrams that will have you making your first project in no time.
If you decide to take it up, or already make chainmail, I’d love to see some pictures of or hear about what you’ve done. Use the contact button or leave a comment with all the details.
Have fun!
hunting, hobbies, off-season, chainmail, medieval, crafts
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