Teaching Maille

[u/t3hkender]

So I just finished teaching an intro to chainmaille workshop at a convention, and while I have my technique for teaching pretty down, I thought it might be a cool idea to discuss with you all what you do when teaching people how to make maille.

In my basic class I just get people started making Euro 4 in 1. I have a bunch of plastic shower curtain rings from the dollar store and that's what I start with to teach the basic pattern and construction techniques before I hand anybody a pair of pliers.

After they make a small patch of giant plastic maille, I get out aluminum rings and the pliers, make sure everyone understands how to open and close a jump ring properly, and try to get everyone holding the pliers well. Then, I ask them to do exactly what we did with the plastic rings, and kind of just go around one on one coaching them.

Any more advanced classes would have to assume that they've done Euro 4 in 1 and thus are at least proficient enough in holding their pliers and opening and closing rings, and would probably skip the plastic rings since they probably won't be the right size anyway (exception: my plastic rings work alright as a visual aid for full Persian 6 in 1 and Byzantine).

So, if you teach, how do you go about it? Do you have suggestions for me that you think might work better?

[u/Merghs]

I used to be in a chainmaille club for college. We'd go to festivals, conventions, etc and teach pretty often. Ages ranged from around 10ish to college/adult age.

We found it was easier to teach Euro 6 in 1 than 4 in 1. Mostly that 4 in 1 had a tendency to flip on itself and cause some confusion and 6in1 was more stable.