One of the things I’ve noticed since I started making wire jewelry is that no chain has one agreed upon name. I’ve had some fairly amusing run-ins with people who believe otherwise, but the simple fact of the matter is that many of the more complex chains have more than one name.
The only exception I can think of is the cross chain, which always seems to be the cross chain.
The first chain pattern I learned was one that in my book was called “Byzantine”. I actually had a byxantine chain scored very low in an arts cometition one time because the judge thought I had misidentified the pattern. This particular chain also goes by the names “bird cage” and “jester box”.
The next chain pattern I learned was the aptly-named “Box”. This chain is fairly amusing, because in its list of other names are King’s Chain, Queen’s Chain, and Knight’s Chain (if you are into medieval recreation).
I’m working currently on learning the Helm’s Chain. I saw this one in a bead shop, stared at it for several minutes, and then came home and made it. My mother recently sent me a jewelry magazine she thought I’d enjoy, and nestled in the glossy pages was a pattern for this same chain, but they called it the Parallel chain.
Then there are the Persians, which I have not successfully learned yet. The full Persian can also be found as the Foxtail, and I believe that the Half-Persian also masquerades as the Snake. Both are very beautiful, and very challenging patterns!
I keep to one designation for each chain, and that’s the name I learned the pattern under, but I try to keep myself aware of the other names for each pattern because I never know what name a customer is going to know it by.
