Cosmic and Maille

When Swarovski brought out their cosmic range, first squares and then circles, these seemed to me to be the perfect components to combine with chainmaille. Unlike other beads, crystals etc. that could be used as embellishments to chainmaille, these components could actually be part of the maille.

I started with the Swarovski cosmic squares and decided to combine them with Japanese 12 in 2 maille. I wanted to create maille squares or diamonds that matched, as far as possible, the shape of the cosmic squares. It took quite a bit of playing around with the rings before I was able to get the shape I wanted. I created four of the maille diamonds and linked the cosmic squares between them finishing off the necklace with a simple 2 in 2 chain. After appearing in the Step by Step wire gallery this necklace was sold.

The second necklace I created used the cosmic rings. This time, being rings, I really wanted to incorporate the rings into the maille. I came up with the idea of having the cosmic rings orbitting the sterling silver rings, using large enough sterling rings to ensure that the cosmic rings were held firmly in place.Each cosmic ring sits orbiting a join between two pairs of silver rings. Using larger cosmic rings to create a feature on the necklace, the remainder of the chain was completed with silver orbiting rings. So, my Orbital necklace was created.