More Chain Maille Cuff Bracelets

I have previously posted on some chain maille bracelets that I made. Since then I have continued to try out a range of different designs – and it never ceases to amaze me at the variety of different patterns that you can make simply using metal rings. How many ways can you loop rings together and get something that looks completely different?

Last time I showed you a European 4-in-1 design and a Helm’s Cuff design. This time I will show you a Ruffles Cuff bracelet and my favourite Dragonscale Bracelet.

Ruffles Cuff bracelet

I bought a Ruffles Cuff Bracelet Kit from Weave Got Maille in the King Tut colourway when they had a sale on. The Kit comes with a tutorial so I won’t step you through exactly how I made it but suffice to say that it is a fascinating exercise that shows you how to work row by row, flipping the piece over each time and alternating picking up pairs of rings from the front on one side and from the back on the other. It involves 3 different colours of 3.5mm internal diameter 18 gauge wire rings (plus gold rings for connecting to the clasp) and keeping them in the right order going across the rows gives a wonderful lengthwise design. It was surprisingly quick and easy to make.

 

Dragonscale Bracelet

I followed the design for the Dragonscale Bracelet in a book called Basic & Advanced Chain Maille that I purchased from Weave Got Maille along with the  jump rings that were required. This one uses 3.5mm internal diameter 18 gauge wire small rings and 6mm internal diameter 18 gauge wire large rings. The finished result looks absolutely amazing and professional. This bracelet took a lot longer to make than any others I have made before but has a thick 3D profile. It is reasonably easy to make once you have got the design going: you have 3 large rings linked with 2 small rings on one row and then 3 small rings linked with 2 large rings in the next row. The rows are linked together 3-dimensionally also and you have to make sure that you keep linking the between-row rings ahead of the ones on the previous row (it does make sense when you see it growing).