Medieval craft of chainmail gains popularity

The Chain Gang; Medieval craft of chainmail gains popularity as aficionados shift their focus to jewelry
JOHANNA WEIDNER
26 January 2008
Kitchener-Waterloo Record


Chainmail has a split personality. The mesh of metal rings is incredibly sturdy, and originally served as armour to deflect deadly weapons. Yet it also has a silky, almost fluid texture.

Perhaps that's why the medieval craft is evolving to a modern incarnation as beautiful jewelry. "It's metal with cloth properties," said Jerry Penner, also known as the Chain Mail Guy.

Chainmail is gaining popularity as a technique to create intricate necklaces, bracelets, earrings and rings. "The technology has never really gone away," said Penner, who contributed patterns to a recent book called Chain Mail Jewelry: Contemporary Designs from Classic Techniques. "It's just natural to start adding some beauty to a functional product."

The beauty of chainmail is its adaptability. "It's got so much potential," said Marilyn Gardiner, a Waterloo woman who teaches bead and chainmail jewelry workshops.

Gardiner recently taught a few classes on chainmail at a bead retreat in Temple, Texas, and next month she'll be teaching at a bead expo in Tucson, Ariz. Along with her teaching, Gardiner sells jewelry kits, including a variety of silver chainmail, online and at shows.

Chainmail can be incorporated into other designs and techniques and combined with other jewelry elements, including beads, stones and crystals. Beads and wirework jewelry are hot right now, so chainmail was the natural next step. Plus, Gardiner said, people like craft projects that can be finished in a relatively short time and chainmail jewelry certainly fits that bill.

Beginners catch on quickly to making chainmail, a process which involves using pliers to open metal rings, slipping them together according to a pattern, closing the rings as they're added, and repeating until the project is done.

Chainmail weaves range from easy to complex. They can be quite light and lacy to solid and chunky, a popular look for jewelry now.

"It's lots of fun. Very, very addictive," Gardiner said.

Room to be inventive is a big part of that appeal.

"Everyone puts their own spin on it," Penner said. And everyone has their own specialty.

The New Hamburg man started making chainmail clothing more than a decade ago and then about five years ago got into jewelry. His first project was a chainmail vest and since then he's made an array of garments -- hoods, shirts, tops and belts.

Chainmail clothing has long been popular among historical recreationist groups like the Society for Creative Anachronism, of which Penner is a member.

Penner brings his labour-intensive garments to events "to show them off," but with a price tag at hundreds of dollars, they're a hard sell. Instead, people pick up kits to try chainmail.

New materials and better techniques in wire manufacturing have pushed the more than 2,000-year-old craft way beyond utilitarian steel armour. There's coloured titanium, a new silver alloy that's more tarnish resistant than sterling, lightweight aluminum and even rubber rings.

Waterloo teenager Jamie Hobson likes to experiment with unusual materials and designs. Hobson made a trench coat from pop can tabs -- about 10,000 to be exact -- and twice as many rings connecting the tabs. He even knit chainmail around hackey sacs.

Hobson, a Grade 12 student at Resurrection Catholic Secondary School, got hooked on chainmail about seven years ago when he first saw -- and felt -- a metal weave.

"I was just interested. It was really cool. When you feel chainmail you want to play with it," he said.

He first made a belt from a kit, then searched the web to find tutorials and new weaves to try. "There's just so much out there. I just started learning different things," Hobson said.

His goal from the beginning was to make a chainmail vest -- an ambitious project he attempted twice before accomplishing. About 80 hours were spent in his basement workshop toiling on the garment. Such large chainmail items are a labour of love as rings are painstakingly added one at a time.

"It can take a long time. I'll be here for hours," he said.

Hobson launched a business selling chainmail in the summer before Grade 10 through a government-sponsored youth entrepreneur program. Under the moniker the Chain Mail Kid, Hobson sells his work online and does custom commissions.

Chainmail thrives online with numerous retailers of chainmail supplies and finished products, including www.theringlord.com , www.maillemarket.com (Hobson has items on this site) and Penner's site www.chainmailguy.com . And, as with any hobby, there are plenty of forums for enthusiasts.

"It's definitely got more popular," Hobson said. "There's just so much you can do that people got really interested in it."