4-1 Maille shirt

I will post pictures of the progress interspersed with a few comments on ideas and discovery's I had and found while making this shirt. I am still busy with it and have been working on it now for a little under a month.

As you can see I am using and old shirt as the template for the maille. This is easier to do than just to make it to fit as a shirt has already been measures and proportioned. It will also make a nice undershirt for the maille so as to make it easier to put on and take off.

Round about here I realised that I had been doing the weave the wrong way and that rather than have the rows run vertically they needed to be running horizontally due to the fact that the expansion of 4-1 maille is in the same direction as the was the rows run and thus in a shirt the expansion needs to be horizontal rather than vertical due to breathing expanding the chest and shoulders.

At this point it weighs just over 1kg and I have estimated the final product will be just over 12kg in total.

I can now wear the shirt as I have added the back to the neck but it is not exactly elegant at the moment as the outside edges flap around. It now weighs 2kg and the front panel from shoulder to shoulder is almost done.

Long absence equals lots of stuff made.

Well lets take a look at all the news things I have done.

Firstly I want to show you my new blacksmiths vice. This thing was a spectacular find in my mow new favorite scrap yard in hartebeesport. It weighs about 60kg and is a solid work of art ha ha. All I need to do now is make a stand strong enough for it.

Next I want to show you the earrings, pendants and necklaces I have made as well. Each will have a little description and difficulty level.

Skeleton earrings

 These earrings are a mix between 4-1 euro maille and a byzantine tip. The beauty of this mixture is that the byzantine tip brings the euro maille together into a circular form. Difficulty 6/10 due to the fact that the rings are all so small and that the tightness of the links make it difficult to work with.

Baubles necklace

 I call this one baubles as it reminds me of a christmass tree decoration. These I make with a simple butterfly pattern which then gets manipulated a bit to make the flat butterfly pattern round. I will provide a tutorial on this pattern latter. Difficulty 4/10.

Closeup of baubles

Thors hammer

 The pendants I made including this thors hammer where inspired by the books I am reading written by Bernard Cornwell about early English history in the medieval ages around 850-950 AD. I now wear this thors hammer around my neck all the time. Basically just byzantine with two byzantine arms at the bottom. This pattern can also be used to make crosses. Difficulty 4/10

Bolt pendant

This is Odins lightning bolt and is also just a manipulation of the byzantine pattern. This can also be made into a bracelet. Difficulty 4/10.

Freyjas pendant

This pendant is dedicated to Freyja the wife of Odin and goddess of all women hence the female symbolism of the pendant. Also a manipulation of the byzantine pattern. Difficulty 4/10

Japanese 12-1 Bikini

This was a project I did for a friend a while back and is basically a bikini top done with the Japanese 12-1 weave. This weave is nice to use for this type of project as it naturally follows a triangular form. Difficulty 7/10

My next post is dedicated to the shirt I am making so look out for it.