The Attic Community Workshop

There are several fabrics or chain weaves referred to as "scale mail", including scales sewed or riveted onto a backing. The weaves I'm referring to here all have the scales as an integral component - each scale is structurally load-bearing and the rings alone will not hold the piece together.

The most common scale weave has each scale linked directly to the scales above and below. This is a straightforward pattern to knit, but the resulting fabric has some properties I don't particularly like. It has a strong curl toward the back of the fabric, and very little flexibility to bend toward the front. The scales along the edges also tend to rest differently than scales in the middle, or get out of alignment with each other.

To try to fix those problems, I moved to smaller rings and added an extra row of rings between each two rows of scales. Now, each scale is linked to the three rings above and three rings below. This requires three times as many rings as regular scale, so nearly three times as much time to knit, but the resulting fabric is much more flexible. It still has a curl toward the back due to the shape of the scales, but is more forgiving of being bent against it.

Even with smaller rings, the extended weave drapes farther than common scale, enough so that gaps become visible in the fabric. To cover those, I replace the rings directly above the scales with smaller scales. The openings in the scales are smaller than the rings, so this contracts the weave slightly, but hides the openings nicely. The smaller scales also give an opportunity to add color more subtly than in the larger pattern. I call this weave feathermaille.