I made a Byzantine chain for the orifice hook on the Babe spinning wheel. You know it needed more bling. I totally ripped the idea off from Lilith Parker you can see her wheel here. So here are the pics…

So I was looking at my stats for my Flickr pictures and was wondering why do I have a bunch of incoming hits from MOO.com? Well it’s because I got a nice write up on their blog! It’s for my chainmaille stuff. How cool?! Anyway this was quite the surprise to me. I do love my moo cards and Jacki has some of their stickers that are pretty cool. I guess I should put a link to it somewhere so you can check it out. Click here to see it.

Starting out with a bit of family news this time. We have stayed at Jacki’s parents for the holidays because my family has the plague. Ok not really the plague, but pneumonia and I really don’t want to get sick. So we will come back over and visit my family when everyone is feeling better. Get better quick everyone!

Oh and Happy Boxing Day!

I’ve been a little crafty over the holidays. My first try at a chainmaille dice bag. I don’t really have any dice to put in it, but Thought that it would be fun to make. When we get home I’m going to try to line it with some fabric and get the cord put in the top so I can close it.

Here is the second attempt at making a bag. I used neoprene rings for some of this one so it’s strechy. :)

Also the end to a long quest of mine. Dogfish Head 120 Minute IPA …

I’m sure that there will be some more holiday blogging either by myself or Jacki.

That is pretty much what I’ve been doing today. We started a crock pot of chili last night and had it for lunch and dinner today. Of course we didn’t take any pictures of it :( I also had a really good beer. I guess this was actually last night that I drank this, but it was still really good. I really like wet hop beers. You just get a really great fresh hop aroma and taste. I hadn’t had this before and it’s hard to go wrong with Sierra Nevada. This bottle was a lot bigger than it looks. I filled that .5 liter glass almost twice :)

I went back and read that and yes I say really a lot. Deal with it.

So chainmaille, an old book, and travel plans under the fold…

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It’s snowing pretty hard here still. We probably have about 3 inches on the ground so far. Not to bad for the first real snow of the year.

Tracks from the elusive Toby dog and the first snow plow siting of the year.

Follow me under the fold for: Tripped out Toby picture, Chainmaille organizational pictures and some YouTube.
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So I was really productive today. Caulked all the windows and fixed some plumbing! Check out more on Jacki’s blog.

I’ve been working on this necklace for a while now. It’s the most complicated chainmaille project I have done. It’s in the Full Persian weave using 3/16 inch 20 gauge rings. The weave itself isn’t terribly difficult. It’s the splits that make it tricky. The idea was to start with a single strand and turn it into a triple and back to a single.

The problem I’m having is going back to the single strand. Everything I’ve tried has looked bad. So I’m going to try coming in from the other side and basically mirroring the piece that I already have. I’m just not sure how I’m going to make everything meet in the middle. I’ll post as I get more done. Here is the piece so far.

My photography isn’t all that great. I thought maybe making a lightbox to take pictures of my chainmaille might help. So I did some looking around and decided to try making one from this tutorial. They did theirs out of PVC. I didn’t have any PVC handy, but I did have a bunch of copper so thats what I made mine from.

I think I need to get some stronger lights to make this work right, but I think it will work. Here are a few pics of some chainmaille bracelets that I’m going to put up on my etsy store when I get some pictures that I’m happy with.

I’ve also really been digging the steampunk stuff lately. Part of the reason I made the light tent out of copper :) Anyway I really think a lot of the stuff I’ve seen is awesome. Here is what Wiki has to say….

Steampunk is a subgenre of fantasy and speculative fiction which came into prominence in the 1980s and early 1990s. The term denotes works set in an era or world where steam power is still widely used—usually the 19th century, and often set in Victorian era England—but with prominent elements of either science fiction or fantasy, such as fictional technological inventions like those found in the works of H. G. Wells and Jules Verne, or real technological developments like the computer occurring at an earlier date. Other examples of steampunk contain alternate history–style presentations of “the path not taken” of such technology as dirigibles or analog computers; these frequently are presented in an idealized light, or a presumption of functionality. Steampunk is often associated with cyberpunk and shares a similar fanbase and theme of rebellion, but developed as a separate movement (though both have considerable influence on each other). Apart from time period and level of technological development, the main difference between cyberpunk and steampunk is that steampunk settings usually tend to be less obviously dystopian than cyberpunk, or lack dystopian elements entirely.

Read the whole entry here. If you want to see more check out The Steampunk Workshop and Steampunk Magazine.

This stuff has given me some ideas that I hope to get started on if I ever have time. Should be interesting anyway…

Well I finally got an Etsy store up and running. I’ve got a few things to add to it, but right now I have this bracelet….

I’ve got to try to get better at my photography. These pictures really don’t do the colors justice. Click here to check out the store. I’m asking $45 for the bracelet. What do you think about the price? To much? I haven’t seen anything else for sale with colors like I’m using so I’m hoping I have a fairly uncommon product.

Oh and the name. Ya it doesn’t really mean anything. Just sounded fun :)

Going into the fourth vacation post. Anyone sick of them yet? I’m not so deal with it :) I’m thinking I’ll do chainmaille and maybe a few random things in the post and then do mostly dogs in the next and final(?) post.

I really enjoy doing the chainmaille jewelry. I don’t seem to do it as much as I would like. Mostly because I need to get my stuff organized and start taking it to work with me again. I always seem to have plenty of spare time there.

Here is a preview of the maille goodness under the fold…

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Yup I’m back at work :( All I can think about tho is what a good time I had on vacation. It was really nice to get away and just relax with Jacki and the dogs (poor kitty bean had to stay home). It was really hot this year. I don’t know why. Ask Al Gore why don’t ya? Anyway we usually go this time of year for a couple reasons. Mainly because the kids are back in school. Also the weather is normally nice and cool this time of year. Not this year! We had highs in the mid to upper 80′s and lows in the mid to upper 60′s. Suck.

Here is a good idea of what a lot of vacation was like. This was at Elephant Rocks State Park in Missouri. Jacki and the dogs hanging out in the shade of a boulder. It also had a nice breeze through the gap there. :)

Dropping the fold here for people that don’t want to read about my vacation or see my many many pictures. I don’t know why you wouldn’t tho.

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