Category: General


Let the Riot begin!

Last Saturday marked another fundraiser for the Rocky Mountain Riot, the local co-ed banked roller derby team. Delia Doom, one of the team members ordered a chainmaille bikini top, epilates, and D ring chain to accent a corset she recently bought.  She wore it for the first time at this event.

The bikini top was made by me  from 16g 5/16 BA and EPDM, using a  traditional European 6-1 wave. Shoulder epilates were created by Curt and I using scales and accenting spikes. While the chain connecting the two D rings on the corset was made with a  Celtic visions weave  in square stainless 16-K and 18-G  by Curt

The entire outfit looked incredible together, she truly fit the part of a roller derby gal.

(Click pictures for larger version)

Here is a close up of the epilates.

Make sure to also check out their team site at http://www.rockymountainriot.com/

A sad day at C&T Designs

Yesterday marked Jenn’s last day with us here at the shop.  Starting Monday she will be back at school continuing her college education, and we wish her nothing but the best.

While she will not be physically here with us, she has agreed to keep working with us remotely.  Starting next week she will be taking over most of the writing for our blog, newsletters, and facebook posts.  She will also be working on some special projects for us.

Keep your eyes peeled, we have some cool stuff coming up for you.

And remember, It’s in the Maille!

I’ve got a name!

First, thanks to everybody who participated in our “I need a name” contest.  We had a lot of great suggestions and there were a number of them that stood out to me, but I decided to go with “Acute Helm” as was suggested by Christy.  I’m still not sure what I will call the variant, but we are tossing around ideas here.

There was also another suggestion that as soon as I saw it I knew it was perfect for the other new weave that I mentioned but didn’t post a picture of.


You can see it has a very wavy look to it.  I had in my head that I wanted to name it something to do with water, so Jill’s suggestion of Hydroglyph just seemed perfect to me.

Christy and Jill I will contact you shortly to see which one you would like.

For everybody else who was interested in the original pattern, tutorials (both hardcopy and downloadable) are up in the store.  BA/AA and Argentium and niobium kits should be up by tomorrow.

Remember, It’s In the Maille!

New blog look, features

A couple weeks ago we had a facelift to the store.  That made the blog look even more outdated, so we had to do something about that.  You’ll now notice everything is nice and uniform across the site, regardless of where you go.

While we were getting that fixed, we figured why not do a little extra.  If you look up at the top of the page you will see a couple new tabs.  Customer gallery and C&T Gallery.  We will be using the C&T gallery to put up some items that hopefully will inspire you.  The customer gallery is for you to use and hopefully inspire others, so show us what you have made.

We will also be using the new gallery for a couple contests and give aways, so keep your eyes open or grab the RSS feed!

Remember, It’s in the Maille!

Rocky Mountain Riot

There is a new sports team in town!  The Rocky Mountain Riot is a co-ed, banked track roller derby team.  We were contacted by them a couple of weeks ago and asked to help out with a fundraiser.  My brother in law is on the team, so I figured why not.  Not to mention the fact that we like roller derby anyway.  So we donated a bunch of keychains and cellphone charms to put in goody bags that were handed out at the event today, and a square stainless steel Gridlock byzantine bracelet that went in silent auction.

Because I can’t do anything the easy way, I also decided to make a new top, that Jenn ended up sporting.  It was a beautiful day for it.

We also brought a few of our glow in the dark chainmaille hacky sacks, which were a hit.  There was lots of food, 5 live bands, and a good time for all.

I don’t know who this little dude was, but he kept changing wigs and corsets and walking around saying his name was “Juanita”.  He was a hoot.

And since we did this for the team, I can’t leave you without a team picture.

They are having another event next weekend, so if you are in the area, come on out.

http://www.rockymountainriot.com/

We have been working hard to bring you even more square wire ring designs.  Today we have publish a F.A.Q page, a weave chart complete with ring counts and pictures of all the patterns we have put together, and added 13 new rings.  Over the course of the next few days you will see even more new rings, and even more new patterns.  If there is a specific pattern you would like to see, let us know and we will see what we can come up with.

Remember, It’s in the Maille!

History, Chainmaille, and the circle of life

This will a bit different entry than you are used to seeing from us here, but it’s important to me and kind of ties into what we do here.

I had originally planed to write this last year, on this exact date, but alas, there were greater plans for me. I ended up in the hospital having emergency surgery. Why is this day important? Today marks the 2 year anniversary of my grandfathers passing, and now the 1 year anniversary of my surgery.

My Grandfather was one of the kindest, generous, warm hearted, friendly people you could ever hope to know. When I “Grow up”, I hope I can be even half the man he was.

Flash back to 15 or so years ago. My grandmother and him gave me a brick of silver. I put it in a safe and left it there.

In 2007 we knew he was sick (cancer) and didn’t have much more time with us. I took that brick of silver, had it turned into wire, and made everybody in the family some chainmaille out of it. This included my grandfather. This was my Christmas gift to everybody.

A few short months later he passed.

One of his wishes was that anything that was given to him by one of his children or grandchildren, went back to them. So I got back the bracelet I had made for him. (18g HP4-1) This was especially meaningful for me since I didn’t get to make myself something out of the silver as I had pretty much ran out after making something for everybody else. (We have a large family) I cherish it to this day and only wear it on special occasions.

A few months later when the family gathered to finish up estate issues, one of my Aunts happened to find 2 chainmaille purses. After much discussion (and later research) it was found that these actually originally belonged to my grandfathers grandmother. This dates them back to early 1900, possibly even late 1800.

To shorten this up a little, I now have 2 chainmaille purses that not only have family history, but date back quite a ways.

When I got them I found a few broken links and had originally planned to repair them, including polishing them up, but have had a change of heart and have decided to leave them as is so I can have them as they were last used.

Remember, It’s in the Maille!

More rings added

We have updated the bronze section of our store with new sizes, stats and pricing.  They are now in line with the red brass we already did.  We also finished updating for all the niobium rings we have listed.  You will notice the bigest changes here.  We combined listings for a couple sizes that had listings for different colors, and we added more colors for all sizes, including un-anodized.  We do have a couple more sizes of bronze still to list, which should be done in a few days.  We also have 2 new square red brass jump rings that will be listed as soon as we pull them out of the tumblers and get pictures.

We will be doing aluminum rings next, which will be sometime next week.  If you havn’t see it already, have a look at the post I wrote up the other day.  You won’t believe how shiny the aluminum is now.  You simply won’t find a brighter “bright” aluminum anywhere.

Remember, It’s in the Maille!

Doherty High Craft Fair

Just a reminder we will be at the Doherty High Craft Fair this weekend.  Hours are 9am – 4pm Sat, and 12 noon to 4 pm on Sunday.  This is our last show of the year, but we will have a few new designs that will be seen for the first time here.  Come on out and say hi.  Mention this post and get 10% off any purchase.

Store Updates

We have received a lot of feedback about our store lately and we have listened.  You will notice a number of changes that we hope will enhance your experience here.

First off, our ring pricing seemed a little confusing.  We used to have a base price, then as you chose larger quantites as an option, the price that was shown was an add on price.  So basically you had to take your quantity price and add it to the base price to get your total.  We have changed it so now the quantites show you the add on price in ( ) and the total for this item in [ ].  Total prices in the shopping cart will remain the same as they have been.

We have also added Google checkout as a payment option.  If you are an existing customer with a set discount (Guild members, wholesalers) it is very important that you log into your account before paying for your order or you will not get your discount.  Login used to be a requirement to place an order, but Google checkout required us to change this setting.

Again, LOG IN TO YOUR ACCOUNT if you want your discount!!

Last week we had a large influx of orders for our 18g SWG niobium rings.  So much so that we ran out.  To avoid backorders, I marked them out of stock to prevent them from being ordered.  Seems a few people still wanted to order them and were ok that it would put their order on backorder.  So, I have activated the listings again, with a note that they are out of stock and putting them on your order will delay shipment untill I have the wire and can make some more rings.  I expect our wire order to be here sometime next week.  Any order with these rings on it will be shipped on a first ordered, first shipped basis.  As these rings continue to increase in popularity we are keeping more wire on hand and will do our best to ensure we don’t run out again.

A new 18g AWG niobium ring size will be added to the store tomorrow.  This size will be perfect for JPL and can be mixed with our sterling or argentium rings of the same size.  We will have pictures of just the niobium and mixed for you to look at.

As I just finished cutting a large batch of this ring size I also took the opportunity to take pictures of all the different colors we can anodize our niobium.  This reference page will also be added tomorrow.

If you have questions or comments about anything on our site, we’d love to hear from you.  Feel free to contact us and we will get right back to you.