KintsugiMaille Origin Story

Cracks are Evidence, Not Flaws

For most of twenty years, I made chainmaille in a bubble. I taught myself, ring by ring, weave by weave, with no one to ask and no one to compare notes with. I got good at it the slow way, by sitting with a pattern until it gave up its logic. That isolation shaped how I work: precise, patient, a little stubborn about getting things right.

Then I burst the bubble on purpose. I sought out other chainmaillers, joined the larger community, and waded into its conversations and debates about weaves, terminology, pricing, and credit. After two decades alone, it turned out there was a whole world of people who thought the way I did, and a whole new way to grow. Some of what I believed held up. Some of it got better.

What surprised me most was how much I love the teaching side of it. I run classes covering European 4-in-1, Mobius knots, Helm weave, dodecahedrons, and more, but the part that lights me up isn't just demonstrating a weave. It's building the scaffolding that makes someone else succeed: the templates, the color-planning tools, the step-by-step references that turn "I could never do that" into "wait, I just did." Watching comprehension land in real time, and adapting how I explain something until it clicks, is the most satisfying part of all of this.

The name KintsugiMaille comes from the Japanese art of repairing broken pottery with gold, so the breakage becomes part of the object's story rather than something to hide. 

The cracks are evidence of where something has been, not flaws to be concealed. That's true of the work, and it's true of the maker.

If you want to learn, commission a piece, or just talk weaves, I'd love to hear from you.