In the meantime, I'm about to start tacking the splits. AND .... I've begun the chainmaile! It's taking less time than I thought. And, today, Matt decided that he needed something to do while watching TV and asked if he could close some of the rings.
See, I start out with a bunch of machine-cut rings that are slightly open from the cutting process. Then I close the rings, so they look like this:
You may be wondering what the mime is doing there. Well, all that black junk is powder from the rings. When I have all the chains done, I'm going to wipe them all off with a damp cloth to remove as much of that powder as possible. But, so that our fingers don't get stained, we're wearing latex gloves.
Then I open 25 rings, like this:
Then I make chains that are 50 rings long (but not made of 50 rings, each chain is actually 75 rings.) I start out with attaching two rings to one ring, then putting on two more rings. Then I attach two of those rings to another open ring, then add two more. And voila - a chain!
Because these chains are so light, they really remind me of the chains of beer can tabs that my grandfather used to having lying around the farm in Michigan. There might still be some around somewhere, too. I'll have to look next time I'm up there.
Of course, the tough part is going to be putting them all together to make the shirt, but this is flying by much faster than the maile we made for Matt. Hmm, that might have to be my next post!
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