Photo Tutorial Captive Rings

Author's Note
Our projects were very popular during the lifetime of our business and we wanted to ensure they continued to provide inspiration for chain maillers whatever their experience. It's a pleasure to see they will live on with Chainmaillers.com
-Sarah Austin

Captive Rings​

A new design using the popular captive bead weave.

Materials​

For a 50cm (20") necklace, you will need:

• 192 silver anodised aluminium jump rings, ID 6.7mm, WD 1.2mm - called the captive ring in the project
• 10 large silver anodised aluminium jump rings, ID 10.2mm, WD 1.6mm
• 18 montana blue Czech glass pearls - 6mm
• 18 rose pink Czech glass pearls - 6mm
• 9 aqua marine Czech glass pearls - 6mm
• 30cm stainless steel cable chain - links 6 x 4.5 x 1mm
• one stainless steel lobster clasp - 12mm

Tools:

• two pairs of smooth jawed chain nose, flat nose, or bent nose pliers

Instructions​

1. Link four closed captive rings with two captive rings.
   
   
   
   
   
2. Open out the last two pairs of captive rings between your thumb and forefinger (picture 1).
   
   Insert one bead (picture 2).
   
   Trap the bead by joining the last pair of captive rings with one captive ring (picture 3).
   
   
   
   
3. Link a second captive ring (left hand picture).
   
   Link two captive rings to the last two rings you attached (right hand picture).
   
   
   
   
4. Repeat step 2 linking two rings to capture the bead. Link two more captive rings to the last two rings attached.
   
   
   
   
   
5. Continue linking two pairs of rings and capturing pearls until you have a short chain seven pearls long. The start of the chain will be linked with two captive rings and the end of the chain will be linked with two pairs of captive rings as in the picture below.
   
   
   
   
   
6. Make a circle with the short captive pearl chain so that the two pairs of captive rings are on the left hand side. Capture one pearl and link the ring used to capture this pearl to the two captive rings at the other end of the chain as shown by the red arrow (picture 1) You have linked three out of the four rings needed to capture a pearl.
   
   Slip the ninth pearl between the pair of rings so that they form a V (picture 2). Picture 3 shows this on the reverse.
   
   Link the fourth captive ring so that it sits below the pearl just inserted and link to two captive rings as shown in picture 4.
   
   
   
   
   
7. Repeat steps 1-6 to make five captive rings in total.
   
   
8. Attach one large ring each at 10 o'clock and 2 o'clock to each captive ring.
   
   
   
   
   
9. You will now join the rings together using three captive rings each time using a mobius weave.
   
   Link one captive ring to one large ring of the montana blue ring and one large ring of the rose pink ring (picture 1).
   
   The next ring linked is shown in red for clarity. Link one captive ring from front to back of the first captive ring linked and through the montana blue large ring. Weave the ring through the rose pink large ring and close the ring (picture 2).
   
   The next ring linked is shown in red for clarity. Link one captive ring in the same way, weaving from front to back of the two captive rings linked and through the montana blue large ring. Weave the ring through the rose pink large ring and close the ring (picture 3).
   
   Picture 4 shows the finished mobius link.
   
   Link the remaining captive rings as shown in the main picture.
   
   
   
   
10. Open the end link of a 15cm length of chain and join to the end large ring. Open the end link on the other end of the chain and attach the lobster clasp.
    
    Open the end link of a second 15cm length of chain and join to the other end large ring. You can clip the lobster clasp to the end link of this second chain.
    
    

Variations​

• Make a single captive ring and use a large ring as a bail for the chain.
• Make only three rings for a smaller necklace.
• Single rings can be made into earrings, although they are heavy.

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©2021 Sarah Austin. All rights reserved.