The Thick of It

I don't know how many English sets I've made in my "career" so far. If I had to guess, I'd say somewhere between a good few and a bunch.

What made this week's set different than the past many, is the fact that it's made entirely from 3mm tooling cowhide. 

Here's a thickness comparison reference for you:

The cowhide is easily double the thickness of my normal leather, skiver, which still needs to be skived down quite a bit to be usable for mini scale tack. Using this super chunky stuff meant at least double the skiving time on every. Single. Piece.

Grace, you ask, if it takes forever to make usable, why use the thick leather in the first place?

Good question.

While there's nothing especially wrong with my skiver, I've been looking for a leather with a smaller grain for a long while now. 

Skiver saddle, sometime in 2015

Cowhide saddle, circa today

Besides the more discreet grain, this thicker leather also has a bit more body to it, which makes all the little tiny straps and whatnot feel slightly less fragile.

It's also much better at holding little details like stitch marks, and I like its overall well-oiled, quality kind of look.

The added prep work time means charging more for cowhide sets than skiver ones, which I don't love. My prices are slowly increasing over the years as the quality of my tack increases (I hope!), and I do my best to be fair to myself and my customers, but pricing is still super tricky for me. 

At this point, I really like the cowhide and I'm not sure if this is a full transition away from skiver or just a fun departure. I feel like the big skiver grain will bug me much more now that I have a better alternative...

I was really pleased with how these boots came out! The new leather definitely molds to the leg better and holds a nice shape.

And of course, what pad color could I possible choose on St. Patrick's Day but spring green?

For this set, I aimed for a good kind of starter English package to cover jumper, hunter, and your trail/games/other classes in the English division. I figured as I'm not currently taking commissions, it'd be convenient to offer a full package kind of deal instead of leaving someone wanting for boots or a breastplate or something. 

Having done a few basic/general purpose sets back to back, I'm really itching to try something a bit different next. I'm thinking some crazy eventing set or something?

Any other tackmakers out there, I'd be interested in any leather suggestions that might split the difference between the cowhide and skiver- thinner than cowhide with tighter grain than skiver?

(Update: this set is now up for grabs on MH$P here!)

Handy Jumper

The beast is slain!

In other words, the hand jump and its accompanying appy and tack is finished enough for my shows next weekend. This has been a lot of fun to put together, and while I can't help but see every little thing that I could change to improve it, I think it's altogether presentable.

I have a lot of pride over this set-up because it's 100% DIY- win or lose, it's always such a good feeling to put something in the ring that you made from scratch with your own two hands!

I'm exhausted and have a lot more props to get done, so I'll leave you with the pics. Enjoy!

Studio Update: February 8

You know what I haven't shared enough of? Pictures of this hand jump.

But I really think it's starting to find its groove! 

I've cut the painter/easel, so now each standard is a tidy square, and (after I give the easel its white base back and add all the flowers) will hopefully look much more balanced. 

The hand itself is getting a lot of attention in the places that I previously thought I could live with before realizing that no, I can't, it needs help. Lots more sanding, painting, and general touching-up to do there. 

Thanks to all of your incredibly helpful comments on the last post, the fence is no longer too tall! Using a scale calculator? GENIUS. I'm such an eyeballing kind of girl that I was hesitant at first, but I'm now completely devoted to that method. Honestly, I can't believe I didn't think of that earlier!

The actual shrinking of the jump involved the slicing of a bit of wrist (thanks Devon!), which was fine as long as I didn't think about it too much. Cutting off a horse's head? No problem. Cutting off a slice of human wrist? Bit icky.

Tack has been happening too- the most fun project recently has been these saddle pads, which are a step up from my usual plain aida cloth design to this fancier aida cloth design. 

Old pad design, in a December commissioned set.

I've really liked the textured, "quilted" look of aida cloth for a while now, but the transparency bugged me a little, and I felt like there was a bit of room for improvement to bring the pad up to the level of the tack.

The new design has fun embroidery borders and details (see the little Irish flag?), as well as a cotton lining that makes the whole thing look not only more finished, but less see-through. They aren't perfect, but I think a step in the right direction!

As a shout-out to my Irish roots, I decided to make my WEG jumper from Ireland, which means lots of fun green matchy-matching.

Some fun hardware happening here: green stirrups, and a Rio Rondo etched D ring as a bit! I think it works? I ordered some 1/16" D's with my last order to give it a try, and I just love having thick, shiny metal instead of my usual wire. I'll probably mess with the little "tail" that goes into the mouth more to make it less harsh and square, but overall I'm really pleased. 

The other pad is of course part of the surcingle set, which is now down to needing boots! Or wraps? I've been doing some experimenting with wraps-that-look-like-wraps-but-are-secretly-boots... we'll see how that turns out. I'm so excited to get this set off to its new owner, and to see it on the beautiful model it's actually for!

Studio Update: January 18

The craziness continues. 

This week has been primarily about prop making, with some pretty dull tack prep work thrown in. 

The second doll from the last post cleaned up rather nicely, albeit slowly...

...And is currently midway through painting. Pink hair on a hunt seat rider? I think yes. 

The two most ambitious projects I'm currently chipping away at are nothing alike, but equally fun to be attempting. The first is for an order, a surcingle set for a gorgeous CM'd horse in the capriole:

Hopefully this will come out really cool, but it's currently just a bunch of black lace. This definitely feels like a project that takes a long time to prep, but that will hopefully really benefit from it later!

As for the other challenge...

via

A stadium jump for my CM G3 jumper! Naturally, colorful standards and striped poles would just be too easy. I thought a 1:32 scale version of this fence from the World Equestrian Games in Normandy would be a much better choice.

via

Braymere featured a guest post by Terri Wright a little while back with some more fantastic pictures of this guy- I'm sure other hobbyists have already given this jump a whack, but maybe not in this scale? I just adore the whimsical design. 

Now, I am not a master sculptor by any stretch of the imagination, and hands are hard to start with. For a while, I noodled on trying to go out and find a doll or some kind of decoration that had the right size hand, but the likelihood of finding a hand in the correct size and the correct position just seemed a little far-fetched. 

Out came the clay.

I now have the rough beginnings of a hand, and a pretty solid little palette with some fun paint smears. Fingers crossed this will turn out!

And finally, some less exciting projects:

A hunter jump with some experimentation with greenery and "AstroTurf" poles..

...and the beginnings of a saddle for this guy to wear while he sails over the "paint brushes."