The Legend of Chain Maille Jewelry

The shirt is a museum piece in Mongolia, from the Genghis Khan exhibit (if you're curious like I was, try this! http://genghiskhan.hmns.org/about.html)

Mail - commonly called chain mail - has been around since the time of the Romans. It was probably introduced to them by the Gauls... but I digress. Then, as now, it was a laborious process of linking individual rings in patterns to create the necessary protective pieces any soldier needed. Back then, though, slaves got the dirty work of making it. The legend goes that some of them decided to create chains out of the excess and sell it as jewelry... the first chain maille jewelry. An enchanting tale... the slaves profiting off the scraps of their master's wear, probably selling it to their mistresses in the bazaar. Today we weave creations out of tiny metal rings that are each opened and closed by hand, as it has been done for centuries untold, making beautiful things for you to wear... Enjoy your own piece of history today and maybe it will be a family heirloom! http://www.etsy.com/shop/avalonjewelrynh

Welcome to Avalon...

Here you will find the stories behind the jewelry created by Michael Lennox and Cedar. Michael is an accomplished Blacksmith and chain-mail artist, Cedar is his apprentice and geek-girl Friday. Both of them live in Sanbornton, NH, a jewel of a community in the Lakes Region of New Hampshire. For a town of few inhabitants, it has many fine craftspeople, and they are proud to be a part of that.

We have chosen to host our web-shop on Etsy.com, which is a cool site for artists and suppliers to those artists to sell their wares. We invite you to not only check out our shop, www.etsy.com/avalonjewelrynh, but to check out other local artisans, as you can search by locale! Cool, isn't it? We would appreciate any feedback on the shop, too.

Our credo is that we want to make elegant, functional design that looks good on you. And we will happily customize to fit you. Also, if you want something and don't see it, feel free to ask. We often create one of a kind pieces for our clients. You are unique, why should you be limited to what we felt like making at the time? Besides, some of our best design ideas have come from clients!

As you look at the shop, you will see that we have chosen to picture the jewelry in natural settings... Michael and I like the idea of our work looking like it was left for us by Fairies... of course, we both know that we have spent many hours linking metal rings to create them, but it looks so pretty. Which brings me to construction of the pieces. Each pattern is woven out of individual rings, in a process Michael compares to knitting. Cedar doesn't knit, so she has no idea! Many of the patterns have a long history, dating back thousands of years. We want to go into this in a later post, so we'll leave it at that for now.

So shop, or comment, or come back here for more updates... we are both history buffs, love to cook, and read, so the articles on this blog are likely to be diverse and entertaining. Until next time, blessings!