A lot of people ask how I got started in making chainmail. The year was 2015. I enjoyed cosplaying at comic cons and dressing up at Renaissance festivals. And I wanted a chainmail shirt...
I spent a good bit of time researching online, looked up pictures and patterns of chainmail shirts, and found plenty of free tutorials. Finally, I dove in by purchasing a pound of chainmail rings, grabbing a pair of pliers, and getting to work. I quickly got a lot of practice with the European 4-in-1 weave. A weave is a chainmail term for the way that the rings are linked together. In European 4-in-1, each ring (except for the ones on the edge) is linked through four other rings.
I made so many little 4-in-1 units! The next steps were to make strips of chains and then link the strips together into sheets. When I make this weave now, I find it faster to just build off a single 4-in-1 unit, lengthening it into a strip. But back then, I was making tons of those units and then joining them together.
Building all these sheets of chainmail took a lot of time, but after many, many weeks, it was time to start assembling them into a shirt! I found a pattern online that showed where expansions and contractions could be added to make the shirt more form-fitting. Expansions and contractions are deviations in the weave where an extra ring is added or removed in order to make the top of the sheet larger or smaller than the bottom of the sheet. This draws the shirt in at the armpits so that there aren't loose bunches there. It widens the bottom of the shirt to better fit over the hips. And it makes the broadens the back over the shoulder blades to allow better arm movement.
Can you find the line where my expansions/contractions are?
Once I had the general idea of how the shirt needed to be laid out I could start piecing together all of my strips and patches. I started with lining up where the shoulder blade expansions would sit, linked things together to form a super simple vest, and then filled in all the rest!
The sleeves were tricky for me. I opted to change the direction of the weave because I liked the look of having a seam there. But there needed to be so many expansions in the armpit to quickly take it in. I ended up making and re-making the sleeves many times over. But at last, after a year and a half, my first chainmail creation was complete! My shirt was finally cosplay ready!
I've gotten a lot better at European 4-in-1 over the years. I can assemble it faster and my closures are smoother, making for much nicer pieces. I refer to it as Classic European on my website since it's the weave that most people think of when they think about chainmail. Check out more examples here.
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