Best Dressed Pony

This month Newsworthy has been my resident "saddle stand", and winner of biggest closet.

I have made two fairly identical sets of tack for the little grey pony, both in two-tone brown, one as an eventing/jumper set, and another as a hunter/eq set.

The latter is nearing completion, and I am VERY pleased with how it is turning out, the saddle in particular. There are a lot of firsts for my tack on this set; stirrup leather keepers, piping around the skirting, piping on the pommel, and pinning of the skirting through the tree in lieu of glue.

This is my first time making stirrup leather keepers

I pinned the skirting through the tree with a head pin tucked neatly under the panels (first time doing so!)

I absolutely love the profile and "look" this saddle has. 

The bridle is even cuter (in my opinion)

This will be my first successful split crown piece, padded noseband/browband/crown, first successful raised noseband and browband, and probably the nicest bridle I've made to date.

Newsworthy is definitely my best dressed (sometimes the only dressed...) pony!

SitRep!

Okay so I have done some re-arranging (lol what a way to begin a blog post!)

I have maintained a fever over 101 degrees Fahrenheit (well over 38*c for my non-imperial system blog readers)

This does not mean I have not been out and about playing "patient zero" and limiting my actions to my work bench >:)

I found a discount fabric store about 20 mins away, upon recommendation from the hobby shop, I should go check them out for a source of leather...turns out they were having a sale today!

There was one piece of blue, one piece of grey, and a fistful of "natural", "burgundy", and "reddish" tone. At 50 cents a piece I figured I should spend a little time digging through the bins. I came out with 18 pieces. They have hides at $125 each, some in really fun colors (a full hide of the blue I found!!! Does anyone want to finance me?).

The "natural" takes dye fairly well..Fair enough for the 50c piece this was cut from!

My leather organizer is a paper rack ;) It holds flat things nicely

A whole hide of this blue could last a lifetime! A long lifetime that is

The Goodwill store across the street from the fabric store called my name, and for a steep $2.10 I purchased 4 bowls that now house random materials, wire, leather scraps, and finished things I have not sold yet! Today has been a banner day for organization at the Hatgi work bench.

From L-R: Scrap...things, Wire, Leather, and Finished Items

I also found some old tack while moving items into bins I had just emptied. An old stock saddle from 2015 (yeah not that old but it looks.......well old) and a stock saddle made entirely of what seems to be anywhere from 5 to 8 oz leather.

Stock Saddle! Note: No Poleys and no overgirth lol, and of course no stirrups?

Western Saddle, most likely cut out from the Breyer tack making set patterns.

A view of my CPU, and the black/grey/black/grey/dark grey/grey line, I found that slightly hilarious. Not on purpose

Last night I made a "bling" browband with some crystals ordered from AliExpress. I received 2 packets of 1440 rhinestones in SS4 (stone size 4) and SS3, I placed an order for some SS2 and SS1 rhinestones..these seem more in scale and more difficult to work with but I will post photos of the results! I would highly recommend AliExpress (apart from the user being called "LeBron James" LOL) for purchasing rhinestones. They have a great assortment, the shipments take about 2 weeks to get here, but shipping is free, and the stones are inexpensive. I spent less than $10 USD on the next order of nearly 4000 stones I will be receiving in the next few weeks, and about $5 USD on the ones I did receive. They are far from Swarovorski crystals, but at that price I can get lots of practice and they look nice. :)

BLING baby! Haha

Aaaaaaand in the last four hours since I started this post, I have visited a leather goods repair shop where I have had some work on my 1:1 scale boots done. He sold me a bag of scraps and I now have some more fun colors to use as padding! Whoo! I will post pics of what I make with it in due course.

Thanks for reading :) 

Zoe

Treasure Hunting

Treasure hunting generally starts with sifting through someone else's trash. Today I found some free treasure and some very inexpensive treasure.

My dad is a regular dumpster diver, he is a big fan of Ulta Beauty, they have lots of packaging and even their trash is clean. Today they had some display pieces in the dumpster! Hooray!

This lipstick display makes a great tool organizer

These other pieces were also in the dumpster, I hope to make display or organizers out of these. They were just going to be thrown out, now the very least I will have some practice chopping up plexi glass.

This corner of foam being used as a saddle stand was among
the "trash"

 In my previous employment, I acquired stacking roll-around bins, which now house my packaging material and soon my leather.

I also acquired a 40 liter jug, I have been at odds as to what I should use it for. The jug is entirely too heavy on its own to fill it with spare change, the only way to get all of it out would be to break it. I thought it would be interesting to collect all of my leather scraps and skiving waste in the jug, so today I emptied my bin into it for the first time. 

Long way to go!

I bought a hardware organizer for all of my Rio Rondo goodies, it came from A C Moore for $12 if you are interested in buying one.

And my final note is: I accidentally made christmas bell boots

with magnet closures

I will be refining this pattern, but I think it's a good start.

Bright Colored Breastplates

I am surprisingly in love with these bright colored breastplates I made for a customer on Etsy

I will have to make more in both styles, they will be on Etsy for $20 each, all have functioning hardware! 

Tack with slip buckles has been discounted in my Etsy store, all or near all of them are $10 USD and under. 

Store link here

Stitch Markers and Saddles

I now have two of each!

Saddle #1, lovingly called "Squish"

Saddle #2, less squishy

Panels are of my own modification from Keri Olguin patterns

Stitch Marker #1

Stitch Marker #2, made from a brass watch gear

Saddle Details

More Saddle Details

New style breastplate!

I was playing around with a new style of breastplate, slip buckles with keepers that are rather adjustable..more so than the others I have made. What do you think of it? Let me know :) I know I'd be hard pressed to find a breastplate for any real horses that looks like this, but I like the halter plate as the center piece. 

Who knew slotted halter plates made good breastplate center rings.