Time sure does fly.

I’m a bit embarrassed to realize that it’s just about February, making it almost a year since my last post. Even more embarrassing, is to see the amount of dust sitting on my shelves and the few tack models I have staring at me from my desk. *sigh. I set aside a few works-in-progress, that I was having difficulty working on, only to get swept up in other things.

So, what have I been doing?

I’ve poured every free moment into training my little horse. My real one. And I’ve come to remember that feeling of over joy, as a seven-year-old little girl riding a horse for the first time. The passion, the love for horses, that gets buried under the years of ‘adult’ responsibilities, over thinking, and real life.

I also got sucked into a new endeavor. Hand painted stall signs.

I’ve been painting these for years, but now am offering them to the ‘public’. What started out as a gift now has me swamped with orders and wondering how on earth I’m going to get everything done. Should you be interested in checking them out, I’ve put up a Facebook page linked here:

Don’t worry; I have not stopped making tack. I’m hoping this long absence will help me take on a different perspective, and spark new ideas. Since sometimes we all just need a break.

Currently for sale through my yahoo group.

Lots of tooling, and now ready for dye...

Where did I go all summer? Well, see, I have this pony…



…and we started showing…



…and it seemed to suck up all my free time. But, we had a blast. Now, I'm back to the old routine and my pony's free to get fuzzy again. Only, I seemed to acquire yet another project…



…who likes to torture our other dog…



Really, he is a good puppy.



So, life has been crazy. But, I've been trying to finish up a bunch of projects, so stay tuned.

I swear I didn't drop off the face of the planet. :)

Custom silver plates: check

Tooling: check

Edges prepped and burned: check

First coat of finish: check

Now to assemble all the pieces into a saddle. I'm experimenting with new adjustable stirrups, which if it works out the way I hope it will, will be just like the real thing. Cool.

Here is a sneak peak at my next project.

I have so many to finish up, yet I feel some inspiration to work with silver and make something fancy. This will be a pleasure saddle, fully tooled. What you see here is my first attempt at custom plates. Not too bad!

I'm getting pretty excited about this one already, and it's going to be tough to let it go.

Ugh.

I hate it when the local store stops selling your tried and true product. Like my favorite crafting glue for example. You would think that I'd be able to find it at at least one store in a 1.5 hour radius. Nope.

After trying out a bunch of new glues it's back to hunting down the original.

Oh i digress.

Happy new year!

I must say I have not been very good at keeping up the blog lately. The past few months have been a whirlwind of mainly work related things along with some real horse stuff. Forcing my little hobby to take a back seat. But now that the new year is here I hope to get back into the swing of things. And of course to finish up those pesky projects that have been sitting on my desk.

I've been working on a modified pleasure harness design and plan to offer one up to the group later this month. So stay tuned!

I hate spiders. Hate them. Their eight creepy little legs skittering across the floor sends shivers down my spine. Ew. So you can imagine my frantic panic when a fairly large one descends from out of nowhere, down my dash and onto the car floor. OMG where did that come from and where did it go? Never mind the fact that I am currently driving seventy miles an hour down the highway. So here I am twenty minutes into my hour and a half commute pulling off the highway and searching the car for the stupid thing. After about ten minutes and not finding it, I reluctantly get back in the car and continue on. I could not get home fast enough. Ew ew ew ew ew.

So now what? I'm not getting back in that car. I know that spider is still there just waiting for me. This was last Tuesday. So I took my Honda to work the rest of the week. Hey, why else do I have two cars? CPF says I'm ridiculous. Maybe so.

Anyhow, car got a thorough vacuum and cleaning. Sunday on my way to the barn I noticed there are now cobwebs covering the entire dash and passenger side. Fantastic.

This morning I'm getting ready for work, only to find a spider hanging onto my kitchen cabinets. Lovely.

I get in the car and head off to work. Sitting at a traffic light I see a little gray spider crawl up the side of the window by my head and disappear into the door frame. What the heck? Is it attack of the spiders day? Good thing I need gas anyway and at least I found the cobweb culprit. So I pull into the gas station and am just about to get out of the car, when out of the corner of my eye I see the big fat brown spider from last Tuesday hiding right above my shoulder in the cracks of the door. Ew ew ew ew! How is this still in my car?! How did it survive the vacuum and the baking hot sun for hours on end? How is this possible? At least I was at the gas station and could properly 'remove' it. And at least it's gone now.

As for the little gray one? Let's just pretend I didn't see it.

Yes you can laugh. I know I'm ridiculous.

Almost there. Just needs the stirrups and underside finished. I used a different technique on the the knee rolls and I'm quite pleased with how they turned out. All I need is one more afternoon and this saddle will be complete. :D

Sneak peak…

I'm really liking the way this set looks on this guy!

I've got the breast collar pretty much done, it just needs to be sewn together. Of course I've saved my least favorite part for last—the string cinch. I don't know why, but I really dislike making them. I should make a bunch and keep them on hand so I don't have to make one every time I make a saddle. Of course after I get done with the first one, I've just about had enough!

Once I've wrapped up these final touches and taken some good photos, it's off to auction!

Here is a quick look at the progress I've made on my new studded saddle. It's currently missing stirrups, but I hope to have the entire set finished soon.



In other news, this past weekend I got to attend a Tom Curtin clinic. Fascinating. I've never been to a clinic before, and now wish that I had entered Mia. It would have done the two of us some good. Oh well, maybe in the fall. But still, I think I learned a lot.

Once the dye has completely dried the next step is to rid the edges of any 'fuzz'. Followed by sealing each piece with a leather finish. After the saddle is complete, I will add another layer of finish.

Since this is a dressage saddle, my saddle tree will have to be modified a bit to form the tree into a proper deep seat. I've done so on this tree using layers of foam. I haven't tried it this way before, so we'll see how it goes.

Next it's time to piece everything together!

I'm currently working on multiple projects at the same time, so that as i wait for glue or dye to dry one one, I can still be productive on others. Normally this multitasking doesn't work very well for me, as I am so easily distracted, however I currently feel a bit inspired by several things. Which of course is working to my advantage.

Here is a quick look into the process of my dressage saddle. I've made one in the past, but the pattern needs to be reworked. So much so, that I'll be making two at the same time. One to keep as a sample prototype, for when I can't remember how I put it together. ; )

I begin with a pattern made from cut paper, which I trace onto the leather. I always mark any flaws in the leather on the backside, so that they don't end up on the top finished panels. I've also had issues in the past with the tooling leather darkening when left out (oops, left window shade up), to the point where the pieces couldn't be used as the color was not even. Of course for dyeing black, these are perfect.

After trimming all the pieces out and tooling them as needed, they are then dyed to suit and left to dry.

My new girl officially has lyme.

She had been acting a bit "off". No lameness, but a bit of a sore back leading to lots of bucking when saddled. I'm not surprised though, as I did get her out of CT. We went through a terrible case with our yellow lab two summers ago. Really thought we might lose him. At least now I know more about lyme than I ever wanted to know. It's crazy.

At least she's making friends.

While I'm waiting for more tack supplies to come in I've started work on a couple more projects. So next on the list I'll have a dressage saddle and a fancy western show saddle. I've got new supplies for the western saddle that I'm pretty excited about and a couple of new techniques to try, but you'll just have to wait and see. :)

You could say I've been a bit, uh… distracted.

I totally need to start a new blog for this, however for now I'll hijack this one and post here. I mean really after the novelty wears off, am I still going to want to write about her every five mins? Well, maybe :)



Here she is. I've officially had her for a week, and I think I finally have a name.

Mia



She came with the name 'Spirit', but let's just say that doesn't roll off the tongue very easily. She's supper sensitive but very kind and eager to please. Check out the white on the tips of her ears. So cute.



Can you tell I have a thing for spots?

My sweatshirt smells like horses. And hay. Oh, how I've missed that.

At last.



I'll be posting this set to my yahoo group in the next few weeks. But wait 'til you see what's coming next. Here's a sneak peek. :)