Chainmaille: Flower of life part 1

You will need:

• 2 pair of flat nose pliers or, 1 flat nose plier and, 1 needle nose plier
• h18 aluminum rings (38)
• D20 enameled copper silver. inner color (12), center color (48), outer color (24)

You can find all these items at BlueBuddhaBoutique including the magic tool product used to coat your pliers and protect your rings.

Now I warn you this is an advanced weave. I tend to take on art projects that are beyond my skill level as a challenge. I didn’t tend to do that with chainmaille but, I accidentally picked instructions for this weave a year ago without realizing I was in the advanced column.. go figure!!
I then proceeded with it anyway and, was completely frustrated by it. I even threw it on the floor of my bedroom and, left it there for nearly 5 hours. I went and tried the dragonscale weave (which is an expert weave…yea I know) the dragonscale turned out to be sooo easy to me. I love it!! I figured if this is harder and, I’ve got it down, then I should be able to do Flower of Life. I tried again… changed their instructions to my own and, wouldn’t you know. I got it.. so take your time and have fun!
I’m using eggplant, fuchsia and, violet.

Take 6 of your center rings (fuchsia) and close them, open 2 h18 rings, Take 1 h18 ring and loop it through all 6 of the closed rings. Open the other 6 rings.

Double the h18 ring

Add the other 6 opened rings, close them.

Prepare your center rings.

Open a h18 ring, loop through 2 fuchsia rings add 6 eggplant (center) rings. Close the h18 ring

Double the h18 ring and add 4 more eggplant rings.

Take another h18 ring, loop through the next 2 fuchsia rings, loop through 2 eggplant rings, add 4 more eggplant rings and close. Double the h18 ring and add 2 more eggplant rings. Do this repeatedly until you have used all the eggplant rings. If you were to look at each h18 ring there should be 10 eggplant rings connected to each one.

If you look closely I made a mistake but, it’s easily fixed by the time I was at the last row.

Prepare your last row of rings. Take a h18 ring and loop through 4 eggplant rings, making sure its through 2 from one ring and, 2 from the next ring over (as shown below), add on 4 violet rings and close. Double the h18 ring.

Take an h18 ring, loop it through 2 violet rings. loop through 2 eggplant rings, add 2 more violet rings. Close. Double the h18 ring.

When you come to one of the centers (there are 6), you need to loop the h18 ring through 2 violet rings, then through 4 eggplant rings, add 2 violet rings and close. Double the ring..

Here’s the very first one I ever did on the left and, the tutorial on the right.
While BlueBuddha’s instructions are great, they work row by row, which is way more difficult and, you have to work with more than one color at a time. With my way, you work from the center out, in a circle and, only deal with one color at a time. I have followed their instructions for all my 1st attempts but have since adjusted it to my preference which has allowed me to work a lot faster. There are a few more variations of the Flower of life. Stay tuned for part 2

enjoy!!
Maveric