A snapshot into my craft room – my ring storage!
Hi, I’m Clare and I run Unchained.Design from my home in York, UK.
Unchained.Design was created in 2018 after I discovered the wonder of turning small little metal rings into beautiful and elegant jewellery via weaving them into chainmail. Initially I planned to make myself some scalemail armour for Live Action Role Play (LARP), so thought I’d learn some weaves to get started – I’ve now made hundreds of pieces of jewellery, but I’ve still not made that scalemail!
I started with creating jewellery designed for the Profound Decisions LARP event, Empire, but have now branched out into many and various weaves, from LGBTQ+ themed, to medieval/viking inspired, and beyond, I love creating pieces especially for my customers and adore doing special commissions.
Every piece of jewellery I make is made by hand by myself one ring at a time. Each ring needs to be opened individually with two pairs of pliers, and added into the weave carefully in the right order before being carefully closed so that no gap is visible and every closure is checked by holding the ring up to the light. This creates a beautiful smooth finish on each piece.
As a small business, purchases from Unchained.Design go to support my family and buy more rings to create more jewellery – I have a rather large ring habit! I find making chainmail keeps me relaxed and happy, and the responses of my buyers also give me a lot of pleasure.
I live with my husband, two young children and four cats (Onyxia, Sindragosa, Alexstraza, and Eranikus) and I’m a huge geek. I play in multiple Dungeon and Dragons 5e games a week, and I enjoy watching or listening to Critical Role while I craft. I also enjoy random TV programmes, messing around with websites and databases, drinking far too much coca cola, and my spirit animal is the pokémon Eevee.
