Shadowbloom and the Wrong Rings

There was a season in my studio when I was still learning the language of chainmaille — the tension, the density, the way metal behaves when you ask it to hold shape. I didn’t know enough yet to choose the right materials, so I bought rings that were far too large for the weave I wanted. They slipped and gapped and refused to lock into the tight Byzantine pattern I had pictured. At the time, it felt like a beginner’s mistake. Now I can see it was the beginning of something else.

When the weave wouldn’t hold, I doubled the rings. Two for every one the pattern called for. It wasn’t a technique I had seen anywhere; it was simply the only way to force the structure to behave. But the moment I did it, the chain changed. It gained weight. Presence. A kind of quiet gravity that didn’t exist in the original pattern. The mistake had created a new rhythm — denser, darker, more architectural.

That doubled structure became the backbone of Shadowbloom. And later, it became the foundation of Black Ice as well — another piece shaped by the same instinct to make the metal speak more deeply, more deliberately. I didn’t know it then, but I was building a vocabulary I would return to again and again.

I think about that often — how the studio teaches you in ways you don’t recognize at the time. How the wrong materials can open a door you didn’t know you were looking for. How your hands sometimes understand the piece before your mind does. Shadowbloom carries that history in every link.

There’s a quiet honesty in pieces that come from problem‑solving rather than planning. They hold the memory of the moment you stopped trying to get it “right” and started listening to what the materials were willing to become. Shadowbloom is one of those pieces. So is Black Ice. They’re reminders that the work doesn’t need perfection — it needs curiosity, patience, and the willingness to follow the thread even when it leads somewhere unexpected.

Sometimes the wrong rings are exactly the right beginning.