janestarz | Project Elf Chain monthly update

It was March first yesterday so that means I come bearing pictures of progress.
I'm glad the light is slowly returning to the world -- it means that when I get home in the evenings there's still some daylight. Sadly, not enough to take natural pictures with, so I used a flash.

All images can be clicked for a larger size.

I placed the slab on a piece of black cotton velvet. The velvet truly eats the light, and photographs well if you take the nap into account. That's a lotta rings...

Size comparison: one month ago, I had 40 cm by four rows of rings. Today I have a slab of roughly 26 x 60 cm.
The piece is 55 or 56 rings wide and 29 rings high (counting only green rings).
Total number of rings used: approx. 1595 green rings + 9570 gold rings = 11165 rings.
(Calculated using a width of 55 rings and 6 gold rings for every green ring)

As for flexibility, it rolls well. The ease in width leaves something to be desired, it's not like european 4-in-1 that will ease well into larger or smaller forms. This will be a challenge when it comes to fitting.

I've quite a long way to go yet, but already it's so pretty! Though this stuff is rather hard to photograph, I'll probably run out of interesting poses for it before I'm done weaving it.

I'm doing well, going fast. Every night after dinner I work on the chainmail for some 20 to 30 minutes. I've had some train trips and a birthday as well as a fair that all included some kind of work on the maille, be it opening rings, closing rings, or attaching the strip of rings to the slab. As the social life and larp pick up again, I expect to go less fast. Best case scenario is that I'll be done with a basic wearable hauberk in six months, but I'm not at all holding my breath for that. I'm counting on needing ten months to a year to finish this project. But it's not boring yet, so that's good.

As for the weight: haven't done any weight tests and haven't a clue on how heavy the slab is right now. I'm thinking on making the sleeves a japanese 4-in-1 doubled weave, just like the leg pieces, if I decide to go on with those. That means the body will have a denser weave. But we'll see about that when we get that far.