Earring Sampler 💗

Hi, everyone!  I'm sorry it's been so long since I wrote a post here, and I'm glad to be back.  I haven't been making much jewelry lately, but today I'd like to share a few pairs of earrings that I have made over the last while.  💗

The whimsical earrings below have so much going on with texture and shape 

that I thought keeping them monochromatic would work well.  The bumpy blue-green

 lampwork beads are by Beth Mellor of Beeboo. The fun porcelain hearts are by the 

wonderful Judie Mountain.  With sterling beads and Two Trees sterling ear wires.  

These little (about 1-7/8" long) chainmaille earrings are woven in the classic

barrel weave, are made of small niobium rings in a subtle rainbow of colors, 

and are as lightweight as they come. 

I think these charms might be some of the most colorfully vibrant that Kristi Bowman has ever made--so

 I decided to take them just a little over the top.  I'm not sure it worked, but it was fun.  

With Kristi and Beth Mellor. 

 These earrings are so much whimsical fun, with Patty Lakinsmith's yellow-and-orange disc beads,

the short stack of blue and green Czech discs, tiny pops of red glass beads, and playful and 

colorful enameled charms by Marlene Kazor Quigley of MarkazoArt. 

Well, I think that's enough from me for now!  I hope you're all well and happy and enjoying the holiday season.  💗

xoxo
Meridy

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Kinetic Loops

Hi, everyone!  Before I show you my new earrings, bear with me for a moment.  Life has been kind of chaotic at Casa Meridy lately.  My daughter Rhia, her husband Ken, and their two children, Kaity (10) and KJ (almost 4), are moving out this week after living with Rog and me for almost five years!

As you can imagine, our house is full of boxes and piles of things to give away and pack...and our hearts are full of memories and love and mixed feelings.  The move has been a long time coming--and much needed--but even so, we've had such a wonderful time living together that it's a little bittersweet too...maybe even more than a little, to be honest.  😔

I haven't made a lot of jewelry lately, but my latest pair of earrings are a lot of fun:  Kinetic Loops!  As you can see, they're chainmaille (of the very easy sort), made of bright and shiny aluminum rings.  The aluminum is extremely lightweight, which makes the earrings easy on your ears.  They're 2-1/2 inches long and  move around like little kinetic sculptures in your ears as you move.

Here they are hanging:

Below they're laying flat--quite a difference from the movement you can see in the photo above.

The largest rings in these playful earrings are 3/4", made of 14 gauge bright aluminum wire; the smallest are 1/8" and 18 gauge.  These could be made with just about any metal, but I'd think they would get pretty heavy!

They're wonderfully versatile, since they go with anything, a dressed-up look or your most casual jeans. 

Thanks for reading, as always!

Our kids and grandkids are starting their move today as I write this.  They're only moving a couple of miles away, so we'll still see them a lot (and I'm a primary chauffeur for school pickups and after-school mom stand-in).  But I still need to make sure I have enough Kleenex for these next few weeks.  💗

I'll be back in two weeks with something new--it's my birthday week! 

xoxo
Meridy

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Chainmaille: Variations

For today's post, I thought I'd share two very different pairs of chainmaille earrings:  one pair that looks like they might have been worn during the Renaissance--or earlier--and one pair that's much more modern.

The cool thing is that both pairs of earrings are made with the same chainmaille weave, called European 4-in-1 (below),  a simple and familiar weave.  Woven tightly of small metal rings into large flat pieces, it was

the armor worn by medieval European fighters (you may have noticed it in just about every sword and sorcery film or TV show).  (In ancient Asia, chain mail armor was made of a totally different and beautiful weave, which is a story for another day.)

Because I specifically wanted these earrings (below) to look like they could have been worn centuries ago, I needed the triangular chainmaille pieces to hang like banners, so I made the spiraled "hanger" pieces

and hung the chainmaille triangles from their widest section, the seven woven rings.  I made 4-mm mother-of-pearl dangles and attached them to the outer edges of the chainmaille, and then fashioned wire-and-bead links to connect my decorated "Renaissance Banners" to matching ear wires. 

My second pair of earrings are completely different:  small and sleek and simple, sterling silver and midnight blue. The chainmaille part of these earrings was made using the same weave as the first pair, but with one fewer row of rings, stopping at six, naturally making the earrings smaller and slimmer.   

Ingredients:  Sterling silver rings, sterling silver wire, sterling silver ear wires, and deep blue polymer clay spikes by Jon Burgess. 

Thanks so much for reading!  I'll see you in about two weeks. 💗 

Meridy (Two Trees Studio)
xo

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Red Creek Goddess

You know how you sometimes get ideas for a design from things that are tangentially related?   :) 

A while back I made a pair of sterling silver earrings using an ancient Japanese chainmaille weave...

...and just recently I began making a copper bracelet using the same weave.  Here it is in progress: 

It occurred to me that the first segment of both the earrings and the bracelet (the large ring + the two small doubled joined rings + the larger ring) resemble a goddess figure (do you see it?).  So I thought it might be fun to create a pair of goddess earrings that could be offered to customers with a number of variations.  

I decided to make my first version in copper antiqued to a gleaming, warm brown, with sterling silver highlights (the ear wires and the rings that connect them) and 4-mm Red Creek jasper and Swarovski crystal beads dangling from the bottom ring.  

These earrings can be made in sterling silver, bronze, or colored anodized niobium rings, and with just about any semiprecious stones, pearls, or whatever else you can imagine.  They're only about 2 inches long and very lightweight, so they're a good everyday earring too--pretty but not fussy.  

As always, thank you so very much for reading!  I will be back in two weeks' time.  :) 

xoxo

Meridy

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"Those earrings..."

"...will be good for the holidays, huh?" my husband said.

I looked up at him, put down my pliers, took off my magnifying glasses, and blinked a few times.  He could tell I wasn't really in the room with him but was lost in Beadland--or more accurately, Ringland.

He tried again:  "You usually make a few chainmaille bracelets and earrings to sell at Christmastime, right?" 

I nodded.  "That's why I'm working on these--well mostly.  They're also just kind of cute."

He smiled.  He's a great guy.  "I'm also planning to make a Hodo bracelet or two and one in Garter Belt weave," I added.  "They work up pretty."  I know he's seen the bracelets and heard of both of those weaves (and he remembers the names), though I'm not sure he remembers what they look like.  But he's always so nice about what I make that I didn't really need to say any more, so I got back to work.

These earrings ARE cute, and they're distinctive to boot because of the oval rings.  I wish could say I created the design, but I didn't.  I learned the design from my friends at Chainweavers, one of my favorite online vendors of chainmaille rings and things (where I also got the cool sterling silver oval rings).  The earrings are a simple design to make if you know the Byzantine weave (or as we maillers lovingly call it, "Byz"), the most popular of all chainmaille weaves.  Each earring consists of three units of Byz and three oval rings (small, medium, and large), plus a Swarovski oval crystal.  The lightness and openness of the oval rings adds to the earrings' airiness.

For comparison, here is a photo of a classic sterling silver Byzantine weave bracelet:  

You can see how dense the weave is, with one "Byzantine unit" (can you see where they begin and end?) disappearing into the next, making one long sinuous round ropy bracelet.  This weave feels so good on the wrist (and around the neck when woven into a necklace)!  

And here is an oxidized sterling silver bracelet that I made in a weave called "Byzantine Rose," composed of alternating units of Byz and "rosettes" or "Moebius" elements:  

The Byzantine Rose bracelet is a little less dense than Byzantine alone, but not as airy as the earrings.  The crystals add a nice sparkle too.  

These crystal Byz beauties are 3-1/4 inches long and very lightweight and swingy. 💗

If any of you are interested in chainmaille in general or in learning the Byzantine weave or how to make these earrings, just let me know, and I can steer you to the right references to get started.  I basically taught myself with tutorials (as we all tend to do), but it's always nice to have a guide too.  :)

Thanks so much for reading--I'll be back again soon!

xoxo

Meridy

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Juicy Grapes

These pretty chainmaille earrings do look a bit like clusters of shiny purple grapes.  Made of blue, purple, teal, and fuchsia anodized niobium rings, their back-and-forth European 4-in-1 weave drapes from a 10-mm ring and finishes with a 4-mm ring at the bottom.  They hang from ear wires of matching niobium and are great fun to wear, lightweight and swingy in your ears.   They're also fun to make, easy and quick to come together.

 

I'll be back again in two weeks with a bit more to say.   (It's just been one of those weeks.)   Thanks for looking!

Meridy
xoxo

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Have Pliers, Will Weave Silver!

I learned my first chainmaille weave about seven or eight years ago and have been hooked ever since.  I read tutorials, experimented with different weaves, and then discovered the fabulous "Spider," a chainmaille teacher well-known and beloved in the chainmaille community.  I got her DVDs and discovered that she was a young woman with a soothing voice and a way of clearly explaining how to get those pesky rings to slide into place and weave together to make intricately patterned jewelry.  I also watched how she held her pliers and how she opened and--even more important--closed her rings (there is a very particular way to do it).  And I learned.

I love it when I get into a rhythm weaving a pattern from the rings, watching my project take shape.  It is surprisingly meditative.   I've made necklaces, lanyards, earrings (these below are antiqued copper in European 4-in-1, with spikes by Karen Totten)...

...and bracelets (this one is copper woven in half-Persian 4-in 1, with a pretty dotted heart by Kristi Bowman-Gruel):

I once even weaved a flat piece of chainmaille to use as a mesh backing on which to connect a LOT of little jasper gem dangles for the focal of a necklace.  This is the back of the focal, showing the mailled mesh:  

And the front of the necklace...

That said, I haven't been making much chainmaille recently.  There just seems to be too many other things competing for my time, creatively and otherwise.  But a few days ago, out of the blue, I got the urge to spend some time "weaving silver" (as Spider would say), so I decided to make some new earrings especially for Earrings Everyday.   They're made in one of my favorite weaves, Japanese 12-in-2, and are sterling silver from top to bottom.  I love their graceful, sinuous shape.  

These earrings can be found here.

As always, thanks so much for reading--I'll see you all again in two weeks!  

Meridy

xoxo

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