C&T Designs

Let the Riot begin!

Jenn — Tue, 31 Aug 2010 03:53:29 +0000

Last Saturday marked another fundraiser for the Rocky Mountain Riot, the local co-ed banked roller derby team. Delia Doom, one of the team members ordered a chainmaille bikini top, epilates, and D ring chain to accent a corset she recently bought. She wore it for the first time at this event.

The bikini top was made by me from 16g 5/16 BA and EPDM, using a traditional European 6-1 wave. Shoulder epilates were created by Curt and I using scales and accenting spikes. While the chain connecting the two D rings on the corset was made with a Celtic visions weave in square stainless 16-K and 18-G by Curt

The entire outfit looked incredible together, she truly fit the part of a roller derby gal.

(Click pictures for larger version)

Here is a close up of the epilates.

Make sure to also check out their team site at http://www.rockymountainriot.com/

A sad day at C&T Designs

Curt — Thu, 26 Aug 2010 14:47:23 +0000

Yesterday marked Jenn’s last day with us here at the shop. Starting Monday she will be back at school continuing her college education, and we wish her nothing but the best.

While she will not be physically here with us, she has agreed to keep working with us remotely. Starting next week she will be taking over most of the writing for our blog, newsletters, and facebook posts. She will also be working on some special projects for us.

Keep your eyes peeled, we have some cool stuff coming up for you.

And remember, It’s in the Maille!

Like the pine trees lining the winding road

Curt — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 17:53:26 +0000

I’ve got a name!

First, thanks to everybody who participated in our “I need a name” contest. We had a lot of great suggestions and there were a number of them that stood out to me, but I decided to go with “Acute Helm” as was suggested by Christy. I’m still not sure what I will call the variant, but we are tossing around ideas here.

There was also another suggestion that as soon as I saw it I knew it was perfect for the other new weave that I mentioned but didn’t post a picture of.

You can see it has a very wavy look to it. I had in my head that I wanted to name it something to do with water, so Jill’s suggestion of Hydroglyph just seemed perfect to me.

Christy and Jill I will contact you shortly to see which one you would like.

For everybody else who was interested in the original pattern, tutorials (both hardcopy and downloadable) are up in the store. BA/AA and Argentium and niobium kits should be up by tomorrow.

Remember, It’s In the Maille!

I need a name

Curt — Fri, 23 Jul 2010 14:33:46 +0000

Last week I was playing with a pattern I had in my head and I ended up with something not quite what I was looking for, but I also ended up with a new weave. Well, two weaves actually and a variant, but we’ll get to that later.

I’ve never been good at naming things so I asked for some suggestions here at the shop and didn’t get anything, so now I come to you. Here are a few pictures of it first. (click on the picture for larger version)

BA 16g 11/32 and 18g 7/32

18-K and 20-C square wire

18-K argentium and 19g 3.50mm niobium

And a quick one of the variant.

18-K and 20-C square wire

So, I need a name for this and I am asking for your help, and to make it fun I’ll make it a give away.

Here are the details:

Leave a comment here with your suggestion.

One suggestion per comment.

Leave as many comments as you like.

Next Friday, (July 30th) I will pick the name I like best.

If I pick your suggestion, I will send you a kit with instructions to make your own. (so be sure to leave a way for me to contact you)

It’s just that simple.

Remember, It’s in the Maille!

New blog look, features

Curt — Wed, 21 Jul 2010 14:36:29 +0000

A couple weeks ago we had a facelift to the store. That made the blog look even more outdated, so we had to do something about that. You’ll now notice everything is nice and uniform across the site, regardless of where you go.

While we were getting that fixed, we figured why not do a little extra. If you look up at the top of the page you will see a couple new tabs. Customer gallery and C&T Gallery. We will be using the C&T gallery to put up some items that hopefully will inspire you. The customer gallery is for you to use and hopefully inspire others, so show us what you have made.

We will also be using the new gallery for a couple contests and give aways, so keep your eyes open or grab the RSS feed!

Remember, It’s in the Maille!

New square wire ring uses

Curt — Sun, 18 Jul 2010 16:36:26 +0000

We are always playing with our square wire rings to find more uses for them and pass that information on to you. So today is the first of the updates.

Japanese Bulls eye is a pattern by our friend Rebeca over at Blue Buddha Boutique. I have always liked this pattern, and have come up with sizes in our square rings that will work for it.

These will use 16-K, 18-I and 20-C square rings. You can also find kits for them in our shop here.

I have also confirmed that using 16-K, 18-K and 20-K rings will give you a nice graduated full persian pattern that looks great as an earring or pendant.

I have also confirmed that a 20-M argentium square ring used in combination with a 20g 1/8″ niobium ring makes a wonderful dragonscale. The shine of the colors bouncing off the argentium is amazing.

Inspired by a customer who sent us a picture of one she had done, Jenn put together a dragontail bracelet that uses 18-K square argentium and 18g 5/32″ niobium. We also have a kit for this bracelet here.

We will get all of these added to our square wire weave chart very soon.

Rocky Mountain Riot

Curt — Mon, 12 Jul 2010 02:17:37 +0000

There is a new sports team in town! The Rocky Mountain Riot is a co-ed, banked track roller derby team. We were contacted by them a couple of weeks ago and asked to help out with a fundraiser. My brother in law is on the team, so I figured why not. Not to mention the fact that we like roller derby anyway. So we donated a bunch of keychains and cellphone charms to put in goody bags that were handed out at the event today, and a square stainless steel Gridlock byzantine bracelet that went in silent auction.

Because I can’t do anything the easy way, I also decided to make a new top, that Jenn ended up sporting. It was a beautiful day for it.

We also brought a few of our glow in the dark chainmaille hacky sacks, which were a hit. There was lots of food, 5 live bands, and a good time for all.

I don’t know who this little dude was, but he kept changing wigs and corsets and walking around saying his name was “Juanita”. He was a hoot.

And since we did this for the team, I can’t leave you without a team picture.

They are having another event next weekend, so if you are in the area, come on out.

http://www.rockymountainriot.com/

Site Upgrades, new rings, and MORE!

Curt — Mon, 28 Jun 2010 09:42:26 +0000

We have been busy upgrading the website. You will see many new changes to the site as compared to the old site. There are some minor cosmetic changes, but we have also consolidated many ring listings to make shopping much easier. If you haven’t been to our site before, some of the categories were a little disorganized. Now, they are much more organized and I for one am liking the way everything seems to flow. You will find it is much more convenient to shop than ever before!

New rings, wait, don’t leave yet! I haven’t told you what rings. Are you ready? We have added Argentium silver and 14K Gold Filled rings. While we do have limited sizes right now, rest assured we are hard at work cutting more. We have also added several sizes of 18g Niobium rings. While we are on the subject of Niobium, you will notice that we have all of our 20g back in stock and decided that while we were making rings we would add a couple of new sizes.

We have also added a number of new sizes in base metals, and we will continue to do so as we get them made.

Over the course of the next few days, we will be putting some rings on clearance including Sterling silver, as we have decided to only make Argentium.

While we have fully tested the new store, I’ve never claimed to be perfect. If you find something out of place, let us know so we can get it taken care of.

We hope you like the new look and layout and welcome any comments/suggestions you may have.

And remember,It’s in the Maille.

New square wire rings, weave chart and more

Curt — Sun, 16 May 2010 19:49:07 +0000

We have been working hard to bring you even more square wire ring designs. Today we have publish a F.A.Q page, a weave chart complete with ring counts and pictures of all the patterns we have put together, and added 13 new rings. Over the course of the next few days you will see even more new rings, and even more new patterns. If there is a specific pattern you would like to see, let us know and we will see what we can come up with.

Remember, It’s in the Maille!

Lindstrom 47i, part 2

Curt — Tue, 02 Mar 2010 22:29:23 +0000

So last week I posted about the Lindstrom 47i pliers I had gotten from them. Shortly after I posted, they posted on twitter about our writeup, and sent me a message telling me to watch our mailbox. To top it off, they even called to let us know. (To the person that called, sorry we missed your call. We would have called you back but our machine ate most of your message and we couldn’t make out your name or number)

Low and behold, yesterday we got a new set of pliers. According to the tweet we got from them, these pliers were “super-radiused”. What a difference!!. My main criticism of the original set was the very tip was rough and I was concerned about marring of rings. Well, that concern is all gone now. These are super smooth and wonderful to work with. I tried them out on some 22g anodized niobium and they were a complete pleasure to work with. Not a single scratch on the rings, and the pliers performed wonderfully.

So not only does Lindstrom get 2 pliers up for over achievement in customer service, I highly recommend these pliers for small rings or tiny detail work.

Thanks Lindstrom, you guys rock!