Millions of rings!
I have been selling on Etsy since 2011 but that is not when I started my craft. When I wasn't even yet a teenager I started making chainmaille because I wanted a chainmail shirt. I was a nerdy kid for sure! But remember this: 3 decades ago (when I was just starting my teen years) there was no such thing as "The Internet."
I learned to make chainmaille by looking at pictures from history books I checked out of the local library. I took all of my coat hangers from my closet and fashioned crude rings. Let's not go into how much trouble I got into for using all of my coat hangers! Painstakingly, through trial and error, and more trial and error and even more trial and error, I wove the rings together day after day for weeks. At long last I had a chainmaille shirt of my very own.
Once the shirt was completed someone offered to buy it for a very reasonable price. I used the money to invest in better tools and more wire. I have upgraded my tools and refined my processes a hundred times over. However, after over 30 years of making chainmail I still do not own any armor for myself.
I started making "Steampunk" jewelry a few years ago. I have always liked gears and how they fit together. I am currently studying silver smithing with my father. He's been working with silver and gold since the early 60's. It took me 25+ years of practicing chainmaille to gain the patience needed to learn to be a silver/gold smith.
