Meet Hanna Ketelhut | Chainmail Artist

We had the good fortune of connecting with Hanna Ketelhut and we’ve shared our conversation below.

Hi Hanna, how did you come up with the idea for your business?
It started out as a new hobby – I’d decided to try chainmail, watched a few YouTube videos, and started making small things. A good friend told me that they thought I should make an octopus out of chainmail, and the more I thought about it, the more I thought I could do it. So I ordered a bunch of rings, sat down and made an octopus. It hadn’t occurred to me that someone else might have done so before, so I just played around until it was the size and shape I wanted. The more people I showed it to, the more people wanted one, and I started out making them as gifts. As interest grew, I thought it might be something I could actually sell, so I made what felt like a lot at the time, and ended up getting a table at a small convention. It went very well, and I’ve kept it going since!

Let’s talk shop? Tell us more about your career, what can you share with our community?
Currently, the art is still what I do on the side of my everyday-business-job. I absolutely love making things out of chainmail, but it’s not to a point of being fully and solely sustainable for me. One of the major challenges is that chainmail isn’t a necessity, and people don’t always understand the amount of work that goes into it, so I often end up explaining that while what I’m making is small, each piece regularly takes me at least an hour, if not 2-4. Sometimes I feel like I spend a lot of time justifying what I’m charging, and reminding people that I have created everything on my table, literally one ring at a time. That said, though, the people who see my creations and say “I’ve never seen anyone do this before!” far outweigh the others, and remind me why I keep doing this. The uniqueness of what I do is what I’m most proud of – the pattern of every creature I make is something that I’ve created in my head first, and then give form to. Aside from learning the base of the different weaves, I don’t look up patterns for how to make my creatures, I just figure out how I want them to look and how to make it happen. Some other people will make octopi or butterflies, and a lot of people make dragons, but all of them are a different look and style from mine. I have always loved people who can crochet stuffed animals, and while I couldn’t wrap my brain around crochet, I figured out how to do the same thing out of chainmail instead. I’ve had a lot of failed pieces, and I still have the pile of half-done attempts where I realized that what I was trying wasn’t going to work. I still keep those half-assembled chunks of chainmail, as a reminder that not everything turns out right the first time, because all of them are things that I was able to get right in the end.

If you had a friend visiting you, what are some of the local spots you’d want to take them around to?
I am a little bit of a hermit (chainmail is a little difficult to do on-the-go, and no one else is making it if its not me!). That said, I absolutely love the Colorado Renaissance Festival, and I will always try to convince people to go there. My top list of places that are fun to go and I’m always willing to visit again include: Cheyenne Mountain Zoo, Garden of the Gods, Hanging Lake, and Meow Wolf. We might find time to wander around the Colorado Mills Mall, or spend an evening at Tracks.

Who else deserves some credit and recognition?
Shoutout to my husband, who has been my biggest supporter since day one. From my constant questions of “what do you think of this [size, shape, color combination, etc]?” to his help manning booths and tables and being a salesperson for me, to the extra financial support when we travel to new shows, he’s always encouraged me and pushed me forward. Thanks for always listening to my hours upon hours of talking about patterns and ring sizes and aspect ratios. And particularly thanks for always reminding me of how far I’ve come and how much I love this when I most need to hear it.

Website: https://pocket-size-chainmail.square.site

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/pocketsizechainmail/