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Rebecca Rudaski, Featured Wire Jewelry Instructor

By on January 28, 2013
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by Rose Marion, Wire-Sculpture.com

Wire Jewelry Inspiration for
January 28, 2013

Featured Instructor: Rebecca Rudaski

Rebecca Rudaski

Rebecca Rudaski is bringing her enthusiasm for chainmaille with her to Tucson, and she’ll make a chainmaille lover out of you in no time! She says there’s really nothing to it: just understanding the pattern to chainmaille is the key. "I love the click that happens in my students’ brains when they’ve figured out the pattern," she said.

One of her tips is to buy your jump rings pre-made – don’t try to make them yourself. Making some here and there is easy, but if you need hundreds – good luck! Rebecca thinks of it the same way as drawing your own wire – no fun.

Rebecca recommends anodized aluminum rings, because they’re available in many beautiful colors, they’re inexpensive, and they have great workability. Plus, if you’re a beginner, having a rainbow of premade jump rings means that you’re going to have a fun time, with no worries about sawing or double-cutting a coil of wire!

Rebecca’s been making jewelry for a long time: from selling hemp and wire jewelry in high school for lunch money, to making wire jewelry to pay rent, she’s worked in several different mediums. It was in college, when she’d added a wire jig to her jewelry supplies, that she was introduced to chainmaille. Rebecca now orders about 20lbs of jump rings in 33 sizes every 2 months! But you don’t have to have a standing wholesale account to join the fun: Rebecca’s got some fun beginner classes, as well as intricate advanced chain mail classes, that will get your feet wet and your jump rings jumping in no time.

Keep reading to discover a chainmaille earrings pattern Rebecca has shared with us!

Click Below to explore Rebecca’s Classes this February in Tucson:

Stunning Stars
Stunning Stars
2 Chances to take this class:
Feb. 1, full-day
Take a Look
Feb. 11, full-day
Take a Look		 Ravishing Rosettes
Ravishing Rosettes
2 Chances to take this class:
Feb. 2, morning
Take a Look
Feb. 8, afternoon
Take a Look		 Infinity Link
Infinity Link
2 Chances to take this class:
Feb. 5, morning
Take a Look
Feb. 10, afternoon
Take a Look
Marquise Chainmaille Earrings
Marquise Chainmaille Earrings
2 Chances to take this class:
Feb. 5, afternoon
Take a Look
Feb. 11, morning
Take a Look		 Easy Earrings
Easy Earrings
Feb. 6, afternoon
Take a Look		 Marvelous Mesh
Marvelous Mesh
2 Chances to take this class:
Feb. 7, afternoon
Take a Look
Feb. 12, morning
Take a Look

Much of chainmail is repetition, like knitting or crochet, so once you’ve got the basic moves down, you can combine those basic patterns in a lot of really interesting and pretty ways. Some students are turned off when I say that chainmail involves math and geometry, but it’s really like fitting a puzzle. Some knobs are too big, some are too small, and you’ve got the find the pieces that fit just right. -Rebecca Rudaski

Rebecca loves making chain maille jewelry, but the one thing she can’t make jewelry without is music. "My tools change, my rings change, my location changes, but I need music to work.  I’m mostly on a country kick right now after visiting Tennessee, but I love rock and pop as well," she told me. She’s looking for "lots of neat stuff to buy (I’m specifically looking for some low grade emeralds to wire wrap), and meeting all sorts of new and exciting people." Hm, I think I might sneak out from our booth to take Rebecca on a shopping trip!

While she’s never been to Tucson before, Rebecca is thrilled to be coming to the JOGS Show. "I’m super excited about the experience of such a HUGE show," she said.

Rebecca’s been contributing patterns to our Free Email Pattern list, and here’s her latest: Tiny Bubbles Earrings. It’s a little taste of one of the earrings you can make in Rebecca’s Easy Earrings Class!

Tiny Bubbles Earrings Pattern Chainmaille by Rebecca Rudaski 

We are happy to welcome Rebecca Rudaski as one of the JewelryTools.com instructors this year in Tucson, Feb. 1-12, at booth #N1 at the JOGS Show in Tucson, Arizona! We hope to see you there, too.

Have a Wire Jewelry Idea you’d like to share? Click Here to submit your idea. You could be featured on our Blog!

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2 Comments

  1. avatar

    Daisy Taft

    January 28, 2013 at 9:02 am

    I hope they will have DVDs class training for us that can’t make it.
    Thanks
    Daisy

    • avatar

      Rose

      January 28, 2013 at 12:18 pm

      Hi Daisy, no, we will not be recording any of the classes. However, we will be releasing a new DVD series soon… stay tuned!