As you know if you're in the US, Thanksgiving is this week. The deadline for placing an order guaranteed to ship before we close for Thanksgiving is 8am (mountain time) Tuesday the 25th. We'll ship as many orders placed after the deadline as we can but those we can't will ship Monday and Tuesday of next week.

If you've been following our holiday newsletter series, you've probably noticed there's been an interruption. For the past two weeks, we've been reworking our pricing structure in response not only to the fall of precious metals prices but also to recent production improvements we've made that have brought our costs down. We want to pass those savings on to you in time for Christmas so Tuesday and Wednesday we'll be updating the entire site with new pricing. If you've been waiting to stock up, Thanksgiving weekend will be a great time to do so. I'll post here to let you know when all the changes have been made... and then we'll resume our Christmas newsletter series with an idea you're going to love.

The second newsletter is our holiday series is available online, in case you missed it.

We've just begun a special newsletter series featuring project ideas to inspire your creativity for the holiday season. This lovely spiral chain is the first project in the series. If you missed the newsletter, you can read it here.

I haven't tried it yet but I think this might make a really nice chain for a pendant and one or two units, maybe with a dangle at the bottom, will definitely make fabulous earrings. I can't wait to see what you do with it. *s*

I've been reorganizing all the information on the site to make it faster and more intuitive to access. I've also written a little tour guide to make it easier for new people to find their way around. Even if you aren't new, you might want to have a look at it to familiarize yourself with all the changes. You can find it by clicking the First Visit icon near the top of the left menu bar.

After you view the tour, if you can think of anything I should have included but didn't, please leave a comment and let me know. Thanks... and I hope you're having a good weekend. *s*

The price of silver is down and we've been able to lower our prices significantly as a result. There's a newsletter going out tomorrow with all the details. Wanna sneak peek?

I've been doing a lot of work on the site lately and I wanted to take a moment to give you an overview of the changes and the reasons for them.

First, I did a software upgrade and some tweaking in the News section and the result is a look that's the same but a little more crisp and some enhanced functionality that isn't obvious but is working nicely.

Secondly, I've added a menu bar with pulldowns across the top of the page here in the News section. This is in preparation for changing it to the News and Information section. The site has so much information now that navigation has become cumbersome so I'm moving all the information pages to what was the News (but will soon be News & Information) and listing the information categories across the top of the page with pulldowns to make it easy to get right to what you need. The only information section there now is How to... but all the other sections will appear there, one by one, over the next few weeks. The old pages will forward you to the new pages but when you see that happen, you'll want to change your bookmark if you have one set.

Thirdly, The Guild has changed completely... and this requires a bit more explanation. The original intention of The Guild was to provide a place for those delving more deeply into chainwork while keeping the News focused on day to day scheduling notices, new product announcements and other things of general interest to people planning orders. That was good but it turned out not to be enough because we actually have three different needs to address, rather than just two.

People still need to be able to find their notices and scheduling information quickly and easily so we've kept the News as it was. The News comes up by default when you click the icon in the left menu and you can always get back to it by clicking News in the bar across the top of the page.

The second need is for specific information regarding chainwork such as resources, tumbling, how to put WallFlowers together, etc. If you look to the right of the main text, below the calendar, you'll see a menu called Information. That used to be within The Guild area, which meant people had to register and login to access it. That caused so much confusion and so many questions that I couldn't keep up with my email. So I've moved all that information out into the light and I look forward to being able to answer my much reduced volume of email with lightning speed. *s*

The third need is a place for information and discussions related to running a business. To those of us building small businesses, nothing is more interesting; to everyone else, business talk is a yawnfest. So The Guild has now become the strictly business portion of the site. This is where it gets complicated so please bear with me while I explain.

In order to keep spam off the site, we can't allow comments to be posted by anonymous visitors. So everyone who was registered for The (old) Guild now has a News Membership. This means you can still post comments, you still have your registered name and you can still subscribe to posts and/or journals.

The (new) Guild, as of the time I'm posting this, has no members at all. Because it wasn't just for business before, the membership roster has to change. Also, because The Guild is now solely a business group, it can't have open membership like it did before but must be limited strictly to business owners. This is partly because business issues are often sensitive and discussions of those issues are best held among people with the same concerns, and partly because some of our future development will rely on better understanding the needs of those of our customers who are running businesses, so we need a way to speak with them as a group.

Some of the first discussions in The Guild will be related to the questions on The Guild Membership Application. Yes, there is an application and no, it's not a quick thing... but the reasons for all those questions are explained on the application form and the perks of membership will surely help to deaden the pain of filling it out. Names and individual answers will be kept private but aggregate information, such as "75% of The Guild membership said this..." will be used as fodder for discussion within The Guild. Please click the Members pulldown in the top bar menu and choose About The Guild for an overview of what to expect. If that describes you, I hope you'll fill out the application. *s*

Thanks for your time. I'm sorry to go on so long explaining it all but I hope you find the new arrangement of information intuitive to use and easy to access. And there's more to come... just wait til you see the Magic 8 Ball. *s*

When we moved to our current shopping cart, we weren't able to bring over everyone's newsletter settings (meaning subscribed or unsubscribed) so we chose to set them all to unsubscribed in order to avoid emailing to anyone who didn't want it. As a result, some of our customers who want to be subscribed might not be getting the newsletter right now. If you didn't get a newsletter in your email last night, you can read the posted copy. There are links at the bottom for subscribing, if you'd like. *s*

As requested, I've added the large lozenge clasp used in the new Half Persian 4-in-1 Kit to the Components page. Although it hasn't been properly photographed yet, both the large and small versions have been thoroughly measured and those figures are included in the description.

With the new puppies, we can't take a summer vacation this year so instead we'lll be taking long weekends by closing on Friday as often as we can. This won't affect much in terms of customer service except that it's possible for an order placed on Thursday to take 3 business days to process, rather than our usual 1-2. Please be aware of that possibility and plan accordingly through the summer months. *s*

We'll be closed Thursday and Friday of this week (July 3rd and 4th) in celebration of the holiday. Orders placed before 8am (mountain time) on Tuesday morning are guaranteed to ship before we close. Many of those that come in later will ship, as well, but they aren't guaranteed. There'll be a newsletter the following week showing the new kit and some exciting variations, as well, so you'll have something fun to look forward to when the holiday is over.

We don't get a lot of summer at this altitude but it's finally arrived and we're enjoying every moment of it. I hope you are, too. Happy 4th. *s* 

I've posted 8 lots of 18K rings in several different sizes and colors in the gold section of the site. (You'll find that link in the right menu bar under Rings.) They're available by the ring and in limited quantities. This is where we'll be posting overruns from our gold ring custom orders from now on. If you don't find the size and color combination you'd like or the quantity you need among the available rings and you're considering an order of your own, scroll to the bottom of the page to request a quote.

On the subject of quotes, each of the pages where you purchase sterling, argentium or copper rings (again, linked under Rings in the right menu bar) now has a quote request form at the bottom of the page. So if you need a size we don't stock, just use the form to request a quote.

At long last, our first Advanced Weave Kit is available. The kit is a class in a box for learning Half Persian 4-in-1. The project used to teach it is a luxuriously weighty bracelet. If that isn't enough of a challenge for you, there's an optional expansion pack you can add to your kit for learning how to join Half Persian 4-in-1 into a continous chain, which is quite an advanced skill. The project for that is a gorgeous serpentine necklace and it's available in 6 different metal options including, for a limited time, palladium sterling.

This weave is known for being awkward and difficult to get started, but you'll be amazed at how ridiculously easy it is to start using my simple method. You'll have the hard part done before you even realize it was supposed to have been the hard part. The wire bound instruction book is the most detailed (and most beautiful!) I've ever written with 79 high resolution, full color instructional photos. The book also includes instructions for 3 finishing options, one of which -- The Roman Finish --  I know you've never seen before because I discovered it due to an unlikely but happy little accident. Here's a photo of the instruction book's contents page for your perusal.

There's a lot more detail on the new kit available here. I hope you love it as much as I do. *s* 

Issues with the printer have been sorted out and they expect to ship the instruction books for the first Advanced Weave Kit to us two weeks from today. We expect them to arrive in time for us to begin shipping the new kit on Friday, June 6th. Until we actually have the books in hand and have checked them over, nothing can be set in stone, of course, but this is the plan as of now. We intend to list the kits for pre-release order on Wednesday, June 4th, just for our News readers as the new kit won't be announced anywhere else until after the 6th. *s* We're saving the details, including the name of the kit, until it's listed on the 4th but I can tell you one thing... this is the best instruction book I've ever written. It features 79 high resolution, super close up instructional photos, all larger, crystal clear and in full color. I think you're going to be pleased. *s*

Our Bold Graduated Byzantine Necklace Kit and kitpack are now available in argentium. Yay! *s*

We've added more specialty ring assortments. We now have Half Round Sterling, MultiStrand Sterling, Diamond Argentium, Twisted Argentium, Half Round Argentium and Copper MultiStrand mixes available. We don't yet have MultiStrand Argentium available and we're still waiting for the shaped copper wire we're having made.

We've added square and half round wire in the gauges and metals we're currently stocking. We'll add more as we get them. *s*

Since introducing our new shaped rings three weeks ago, we've been setting aside some rings from each batch with the intention of making assortments available as each ring reaches a target stock level. The first few four shapes reached those levels this week so we now have assortments available in Square Sterling, Diamond Sterling, Twisted Sterling and Square Argentium. Have fun with them. *s*

Our bentnose Lindstrom's are back in stock. Yay!

Note: The News section of our site is divided into two parts. This part is the public area, generally limited to scheduling and new product announcements. The members only area is called The Guild and contains a great deal of information on topics ranging from weaves, free tutorials and ring size recommendations to running a business and other things of interest to people who take their maille seriously. Membership in The Guild is free, painless and your registration information is kept strictly private. The following post is the latest one from The Guild, pasted here to give you a preview of what you can expect from that area of the site. If this is the kind of thing you're interested in seeing, please visit the registration page and join us in The Guild.

Ever since we added our new Specialty Rings, I've been dying for some time to play with them. I set aside some happy fun time this weekend and made this bracelet. It's a simple Romanov without Beads (as shown at the bottom of our Byzantine Weave Gallery page) but it looks so striking with copper multistrand rings as connectors. This one is made with 16g/4.5mm sterling byzantine segments. Each segment requires 14 rings so 28 rings for each Romanov unit, which is 3/4 of an inch long when curved as shown. The last pair of rings at the tip of each byzantine segment is 16g/3.75mm. (That's what holds the curve in the byzantine segments.) The copper multistrand rings I used for connectors are 3x18g/10.0mm. I used 8 for an 8" bracelet, so plan on needing 1 per inch for this chain.

I made a couple of interesting discoveries while playing with our new half round rings. First, they make a really interesting chain when put together the same way the flowers are made for the Flower Chain. They look more like knots than flowers, though, so I've been calling this the Half Knot Chain. It's a small and delicate looking chain, but it's really dense and weighty, much more so than it appears. I used 5 rings for each knot, which makes the knots really dense and round. Notice in the photo taken from the side that the chain isn't ribbon shaped, like a normal flower chain, but is instead as thick as it is wide. I used 16g/4.5mm half round rings for this, 5 per knot plus 2 for connectors, all the same size. This chain requires about 28rpi (rings per inch) so you can make about 11.5" of chain from a single troy ounce. Remember that half round rings are only half the thickness of the same gauge round ring, so 16g half round rings feel about as substantial as 20g round rings and this chain, at only about 7mm wide, is much narrower than anything you could make from 16g round rings. Using 5 rings per knot makes the chain so dense that it's a little hard to weave but you could use 4 per knot to loosen it up a bit, if you prefer.

Another discovery I made is that these knots are really nice for slipping over the neck of a wrapped loop to add weight to the transition between the bead and the chain. The knot shown in this photo is made of the same 5 16g/4.5mm half round rings used for the chain above. Make the knot, then slip it over a wire wrapped loop on one end of a bead link then begin weaving the chain from the protruding loop to hold the knot on. If you don't know how to make a wire wrapped loop, you'll find detailed instructions in our Earring Designer RingSet or you can just use a search engine to find directions online.

If you'd prefer to use half round rings in another size, all but the smallest inside diameters should work nicely, just vary the number of rings you use to get a fit you like.

I hope you find these ideas useful and fun. I'll add more as I have time to experiment. *s*

High demand for our new Specialty Rings, in combination with the normal glitches of adding new products, have resulted in some irregular shipping times over the past week. We're working out the bugs and should be back on schedule within a day or two. Thanks for your patience in the meantime. *s*

In celebration of the best 5 years of our lives, we've added 5 beautiful new ring styles for you to enjoy. You can reach them by clicking Specialty Rings in the right menu bar. If you look under Elements in that menu, you'll see that we've also added wire. Due to an issue with the mail server we'll be using, our anniversary newsletter can't go out until tomorrow... but today's our anniversary and I didn't think you should have to wait. Thank you so much for the past 5 years and we hope you love the new rings as much as we do. *s*