Weavin' 101: Byzantine

Weave-time~

Now we get to the delicious, gooey center of my blog, weaving! These posts will be interspersed with my projects, since the projects will make a great deal more sense when you see the weaves necessary to make them.

Head on past the jump for more about this neat chain weave!

For starters, Byzantine weave! Very pretty, very simple. This is not the most basic weave there is, but it's pretty damn close. I would venture to say that most maillers try this weave shortly after European 4-in-1, which I will cover in my next post.

Acronym Guide

• AR - Aspect ratio
• swg - standard wire guage
• AA - anodized aluminum

Overview

So why start with Byzantine? Well, it all started with a bracelet:

In this picture it has a magnet clasp, which proved to be too weak. I replaced it with a Lobster clasp.

I made this for a friend for her birthday. Four days later I had 3 commissions for the same type of bracelet in a variety of colors.

I don't have pictures of all of them, but I also made blue-brown, red-brown, and red-orange.

Byzantine is a commonly used weave in simple jewelry designs; just check out your local Renaissance faire if you don't  believe me. Anodized aluminum makes it easy to make neat-looking, colorful, cheap, and fairly durable bracelets and such. After a bit of practice making this weave, I can finish a bracelet in as little as 30 minutes of concentrated effort.

Byzantine is commonly referred to as a "Box Weave" because of the spaces created by the loops folded into each other. I don't do many other weaves like this, but there are a few out there I may try at a later date.

Technical Considerations

The Aspect Ratio of 18swg 3/16" is 4.0, whereas 16swg 5/16" is 5.0. This factor effects how tightly bunched the links of the weave are.

As you can see, the smaller AR results in a tighter, more defined weave than the larger AR. This makes it much more conducive to making bracelets and other forms of jewelry. As an aside, it's also a lot easier to get clear photos of this weave with the smaller AR, as the larger size weave tends to flatten out when laid on flat surfaces

As you can see from the photos, I use 2 rings to interlink each "box" segment. This can be varied according to the AR being used, and it is common to see as many as 3 rings used in each link. 2 rings work perfectly for the 18swg 3/16" rings, but I could probably get away with 3 rings on the 16swg 5/16".

I do still sell these, which along with the sponsored ads on this blog pay for my rings and tools. They are currently $10 each, you can request up to 3 colors from what I currently have (brown, yellow, blue, violet, pink, red, orange) per bracelet. In about a week or so I am getting green, black, and gold rings in as well. I shall keep you posted. If you want more than one, I can discount the cost per bracelet for you. There is a reason I use the price scheme that I do, which I will detail further in a future post.

As a final note: I considered making a dedicated post to the basics of weaving technique, but I decided against it initially because I thought I would incorporate some of that information into each post about specific weaves. 

Would you like to see such a dedicated post? Vote on the poll in the sidebar with your opinions.

Thanks for reading, happy mailling. :)