CGMaille.com - Captive Inverted Round

Captive Inverted Round is a nice weave for chunky necklaces for guys. In the right AR, it can be a rigid weave for sculptural use. This tutorial assumes you already know how to weave basic Inverted Roundmaille.

Aspect Ratio & Ring Sizes
In order to be able to fit captive rings in the weave, you need to use rings with a relatively large AR. 20swg 3/16" rings (AR ~ 6.6) make a chain that fits 3 captives; 18swg 1/4" rings (AR ~ 5.7) fits 1 -2 captives. Experiment to see what ring size fits your needs the best. You can capture rings, beads, Barbie doll heads; anything that'll fit.

Metric sizes - approximately 0.8mm wire with a 4.8mm inner diameter for 3 captives; 1.2mm wire with a 6.4mm inner diameter for 1-2 captives.

Tutorial Color Scheme
Inverted Round rings are steel and captive rings are gold.

Step 1: Here you have your starting, 4 cage inverted roundmaille chain. 'Cages' are the 3-ring units that form the area where the captive rings will be going.

Step 2: Fold the green end rings back over the rest of the chain. This is like peeling a banana, or a flower opening. An animated picture of this is here (251kb) and a wmv movie is here (221kb).

Step 3: Place the closed captive rings in the middle there. In this example, I'm using 2 captive rings. You might only be able to fit 1, or 50, depending on the aspect ratio of the rings.

Step 4: Now fold back over the captive rings, closing the cage.

Step 5: Add another cage, fold over, add captive rings.