In my second collection (of Sayuri) I made a couple of pieces based on chain mail. Charm bracelets, long chains….the bracelets sold like hot cakes but the chain sales was not very encouraging. so I stopped making chain mail jewelry until I read a recent newsletter for making chain mail based jewelry. The article promised that after reading it I will never look at chain mail the same way and thats precisely what happened. Equipped with this new knowledge I intended to work with CM once more and the opportunity came in the form of an old floral hairpiece that belong to my grandmother.
Called kodi mullai or malli mottu (jasmine bud) in tamil. It is a hair comb shaped like buds of jasmine in gold colour with 3 stone studded florets of 5 petals each on its base. The last time it was in full piece was 30 years back when my mother wore it in her hair during her wedding. I last saw it 15 years back when my mom used it in a traditional dress competition. Couple of weeks back My mom found it while going through her old stuff and noticed that the florets had fallen out and were missing. When I tried to wear it in my hair I realised that it was too big and that I didnt have enough hair to hold it. On closer inspection I found that it was not fully gold as we had originally thought but an amalgamation of brass, copper and gold plated buds. Giving it to the goldsmith didnt make sense. I looked at it for some time. and took my pliers bent the back(comb) to make a bail, cut and stuck some white faceted stones (with gold bases) to the points which originally housed the florets, added a strand of pearls and made it into a pendant
I was really scared of what my mother’s reaction would be as it was her heirloom. but to my surprise she really liked it and felt that it was more useful this way. To compliment it I tried using different types of chains, gold beads but nothing worked. Finally I made a simple chain mail necklace and strung it to together. Viola my first self made metal necklace… I love it…n here it is for all of you to see and comment.
My special Thanks to Pearl of The beadinggem journal for featuring this necklace in her blog
Cheers
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