How to Make a Japanese 8 in 2 Chain Maille Bracelet With Austrian Crystal Edging

SKU VID-0169
Designer: Megan Milliken
In this video, learn how to do the Japanese 8 in 2 chain maille weave and make it into a bracelet with Austrian crystal bicone beads along the edges.

The brand name for the crystals shown in this video is no longer available. High quality Austrian crystals are now available under the PRESTIGE™ Crystal Components line.

Audio Transcript
Note: This audio transcript is auto-generated and may not be completely accurate.
Hi this is Megan with Beadaholique.com and today I'm going to show you How to Make a Japanese 8-in-2 Chain Maille Bracelet With Swarovski crystal edging on it so the Japanese 8-in-2 Chain Maille weave is pretty simple the same thing as a 4-in-1 except it's doubled so you have rings in each sections instead of one. Every ring has a partner I'm using for this bracelet I'm using black coated artistic wire chain maille rings. The black coating is a little fragile. If you're just starting you might want to try using one of the other finishes because the black can scratch off so you just have to be careful with it I'm using two different sizes of twenty gauge rings the larger ones are a three sixteenths of an inch inner diameter and the smaller ones are seven sixty fourth of an inch inner diameter To make the chain maille you will need two pairs of nylon pliers. You can also use a BeadSmith Jump Ring Opener if you like working with that tool it can be handy I find that you do still need two pairs of pliers because some of the time when you really need to get in there to get your jump rings closed you can't quite get in there with that but it can be a timesaver for parts of this so to start I'm doing three rings across for the width of my piece so what I found with the doubled rings is that its easiest to just do one first and then go back and put the other one in so for the end and the beginning of our bracelet we only want two loose rings. We don't need to have rings to connect to the other side so for that very beginning we're going to start with six rings on that corner ring there so I have already closed a few of my smaller jump rings you can can count out how many you need and close them ahead of time or you can just close them one by one as you go Start by putting six of the smaller rings onto the larger ring and close it up I'm going to take a second large ring put it through the small rings run it right along the side of the first large ring take another large ring, we'll go to this middle ring on the first row there you want to go through two of the smaller rings because in this weave each large ring connected by two small rings before you close the second ring you need to add four more rings close that up and then add in another large ring just right next in to the first one you wanna make sure when you're adding in the second ring to any of these that it's parallel with the first and not twisted around and tangled up I missed one of the other rings you wanna make sure that you every time you get right next to it and through all the same rings it's a lot easier after you get going than it is to the first section there and we're gonna do this last corner right here again you want to take two of those rings and then you're going to add four more because you want six off of each of those corners. Usually you'd have eight on each one which is or on each pair which is why it's called 8-in-2 but on the corners we're not going to have this many put your four of the rings on there then add a second ring your three rings should have four small rings loose on the top not connected to anything but this set here two in the middle and four on the bottom and just decide now if you're just going to do a different project with the same weave with the japanese 8-in-2, you wouldn't need these extra two rings at the top on the bottom on the edges if you're not going to connect further we're doing that because we're going to string a beading wire and crystal beads on it so that's why those are there, if you're just gonna do the plain weaving you can on the ends the edges you can leave those off so now we're ready to do our second row, this is when it gets easier take your large ring and go through those two small rings you're gonna add in a second one this kind of work can be where it's handy to wear a jump ring opener take another large ring and you're gonna continue to work to the right on your second row and you're going to attach that to the two rings on the middle ring so if you don't know how this works we have a video on how to use the jump ring opener but all you do is insert the ring and bend it with the pliers very handy close that up and then grab another another jump ring and put it in with that one so thats two of the three for the next row going to add into the bottom one there go right through those two jump rings there one more through the same two we have we have the next row of large rings and we just need to connect them together with the small rings take a small ring connect these two large rings with those two large rings make you get all four in a situation like this you're really do need the second pair of pliers so you can get in there and close that up add in another make sure again that you get all four rings and then you need to connect the set of two rings to that set of two rings with the small rings like these two pretty easily get the idea of this weave it's not very complicated getting the hang of making it can be a little bit harder but understanding how it should go together is pretty simple so then we have all three sets of large links for our second row now we need to do the small links that will connect to the next row and the small links that will go up on the top of the bottom to hold our beading wire you want to put two links to go to the next row and two links for the top on the top of the bottom, so four on the top of the bottom and then you just need two go across on the middle so put four onto the top put two onto the middle put four rings onto the bottom so when you have the rows done you can see you have two rings on top of each and two rings on the bottom of each two facing the next, you're just going to go in there with your large ring and attach one to each side of the last set and continue on for the length of the bracelet and as far as the link goes you want the link to be pretty close to the actual measurement you can see mine is just about an quarter of an inch shy we're gonna put in a magnetic clasp and some wire protectors it's gonna add a little bit of length and I want this to fit pretty close so I'm just going to get it just shy of touching so once you have your japanese 8-in-2 all the way down the line as long as you want then you're going to need some beading wire I'm using black Beadalon beading wire It's .15 inches also two magnetic clasps two sets and I'm using gunmetal findings we don't have all these specific findings in black gun metal is nice and dark it won't be too bright against the dark colors you want to grab some crimp beads and some thread and wire protectors four of each I cut two links of my beading wire about twelve inches long a piece. You wanna have a nice extra few inches to work with you're going to put a crimp bead about an inch onto your beading wire and then thread your wired through the wire protector and back down through the other side it's kind of hard to see, go through the little tiny loops before you put it back through the crimp bead separate the magnetic clasp and put with the beading wire in the wire protector you'll want to put the loose end through loop on the clasp take that down all the way into the bend of the wire protector then you're gonna move you're crimp bead down grab the tail pinch close your wire protector so that the ends meet and then use a crimping tool to crimp your crimp bead trim off the extra tail there take your nice finished off wire and you'll need some six millimeters Swarovski bicone beads. I'm using purple velvet. I think that that dark purple color looks really pretty against the black take your beading wire and you're going to go through the rings, you're gonna run all the way through the rings that are sticking off the top between each set of rings you're gonna put the bead to go through the bead go through the next set of rings put on a bead go through the rings you just keep going all the way along until you get to the and and then you're going to attach another end of the clasp with a wire protector and a crimp bead at that end and you continue doing the same on the other end so once you've got the top and the bottom in both of the rows are finished off with the crimp and wire protector just like you did when you started put the crimp bead on through the wire protector put the end of the clasp and you want to make sure that you don't mix up your clasp ends You want to make sure that you're connecting ends to end the to that stick together If you put the wrong ends together they won't go together nicely. You want to keep those straight when you're working take that tail back through the crimp bead pinch down your thread and wire protector and go ahead and pull it snug it's ok if this end goes into these rings. It'll just keep it more snug pull onto this end until it's right at the edge. You don't want it in there too far because you won't be able to crimp it and the magnetic clasps do tend to make friends with your pliers be careful that you get it where you want crimp that down trim off the end you'll finish off both ends the same way your clasps will do that but that's okay because once you put them together they won't that's what your finished bracelet looks like and you can see you're adding about half an inch in with those clasps on there when you're all done it will be a nice snug fit bracelet with a wider bracelet it always looks nice And that's How to Make a Japanese 8-in-2 Chain Maille Bracelet With Swarovski Edging

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