The steel strawberry

The steel strawberry aka: Reginald von Dicebag the Second

3/16" ID, 18-gauge stainless steel rings

A scalemaille dicebag from the inside, a surreal view of rings on all sides coming to a point in the middle.

I actually remembered to take a few mid-process pictures of this one. The first picture is actually a very good lesson if you ever get into chainmaille. Good rule of thumb, if you ever lose your place, look for the odd number of rings. For any basic pattern, every ring or scale will have only 2 or 4 other rings attached to it. If you can find a scale with 3 rings, that's where you left off. Usually, I have a bigger aluminum ring that I attach to the first ring of any new row, so when I inevitably drop it, I'll at least know where one end of the row is. I can just start from that side and work back to where I dropped it. There's a couple half-finished shots, about where I was no longer able to flip it inside out. From that point on, it's rings-on-the-inside only. That last picture shows the method I used as I was closing it up. The very bottom worked out a lot better than the first dicebag.

A closeup of the underside of the scale weave, showing a corner of shiny scales and rings, on a dark brown couch.

The bag half-completed and inside out, with several large pointer rings attached at certain connection points, laying on the brown couch.

The half-finished pouch but rightside in. It has about an inch of regular chainmaille above the scales, and about twice the length of scales down, on the brown couch.

An outside pic, showing the pouch from top-down sitting on Kabutroid's leg, green khaki's and grass beneath, and a cutaway shot showing how the very very bottom scales are connected together, just 3 rings.

That first pic shows how I left the opening. I had it contract into six points (and just because, made three points scale, three points chainmaille). For the drawstring, I've had a length of Jens Pind Linkage in 18g 3/32ID stainless kicking around. I used lock washers for the loops... convenient size more than anything else. I didn't want to leave a gap between two corners where the slack came through, so I devised a way to have two lock washers coming off the same point nicely.

I love that pattern on the scales. It seems... used... worn. Tired. Except it's tempered high carbon steel.

And that other one's what the inside looks like. I kinda like that little glimmer of light in the middle.

A closeup pic of the thick washers used as a seam, and the jens pind chain running through them. The scales are all mottled and a mixture of that's-something-close-to-rust and black, almost like it's peeling away. It looks really good, rustic and worn.

Showing the inside of the bag, a very surreal shot with chainmaille running up all sides of the photo, and coming to a point in the middle with a bright light behind the chainmaille. If you zoom in on the center, Kabutroid put a little tiny Metroid in the center of that bright point. It's the baby Metroid from Metroid 2.

"Is she being all symbolic there?"

That's a good question. Here's the steel strawberry:

The steel strawberry, looking strong and weathered, in a darkened room with light from a window. It almost seems to be holding its arms crossed, as it's standing in wait.