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I hope you've enjoyed the first four videos in my series on how to make chainmail.

I'm a visual learner. I can't always follow when someone just tells me the steps in a process, and I have a bad tendency to skim when I'm reading instructions. However, if I see it done once, I can usually repeat it with no problems. Even though I've been making chain maille for a decade, I still get just as frustrated as any beginner if I'm stuck with nothing but badly printed how-tos.

Chain maille requires so much spatial reasoning that many people have trouble getting the hang of it, and I've found when I teach that people have a much better chance of understanding how to create chain maille weaves if they see it happen, rather than trying to follow along a booklet.

Even though a lot of my jewelry falls into more general wire and gemstone designs, chain maille is where I started creating jewelry and it's what I love to do most. For me it's a lot like knitting - I can sit in front of the television and just make it for hours. Since one of my favorite local stores closed down I haven't had a lot of opportunities to teach and I miss it a lot, so I decided to try a series of videos to share what I know.

Why are they free? There's so much excellent free content on the web, including plenty of jewelry making videos, that I don't want to compete in that way. I'd rather share my own style of teaching and not worry about the business stuff.

Once I get through some of the basic weaves and techniques, I intend to develop more that include designing complete pieces. Some will talk about creating complete projects, while others might just be conversations about designing in general using examples that aren't always possible to explain in regular article format. Even if chain making is not your thing, you may find it interesting to see the work in progress, just as you've seen in my Designing Jewelry category on this blog.

In order to support the basic series of jewelry making, I'll include some other techniques on the way, like wire wrapping, crimping and so on. Whether you can't wait to pick up your first pair of pliers, or have been beading for years, I hope there will be something for everyone.

Get started in the video archives and learn to use jump rings to make your first two bracelets.