Karma

It took me all summer, but my Jennifer Show donation is finally on its way to Colorado.

Today I leave for college 2,851 miles away from home. This summer has been loaded with prep for this, and light on tack making; the dressage set came together over countless little hour and half hour long sessions here and there instead of dedicated studio days.

While this sluggish work pace was frustrating, my belief in the idea of karma kept me motivated. Jennifer Buxton's blog was one of my first introductions to the hobby as a little kid, and her tack was definitely one of the main inspirations behind me trying tack making myself.

Jennifer puts an insane amount of time and thought and love into her blog, providing a near daily dose of hobby goodness, and I just had to spring at the opportunity to say thank you.

I'd already been yearning to try an upper level dressage set for the new Valegro mold, and the donation opportunity seemed like a worthy cause for such a frustrating intricate set. 

The saddle is particularly adventurous, using entirely new patterns, a hand-sculpted tree (as opposed to my typical soda can structure), and...

...actual sweat flaps!

This is my first and probably last ever saddle to have multi-layered flaps, but I really wanted to try out a double layer knee block design. I have to say I'm really pleased with the result. 

As with all experimental saddles, I can see things I'll change for next time, but I think overall it's pretty snazzy!

Seeing as the Jennifer Show sounds like THE hobby show of the year, it seemed only fitting to throw together a champion prize-style blanket to go with.

This is actually my first ever attempt at a blanket (beyond my very stylish felt and scotch tape ones with which I outfitted my herd as a kid), and I had a blast putting it together!

The burgundy color (which also lines the inside of the dressage pad) was inspired by the letter shadowing in the show's amazing logo:

The lettering is all hand-painted with the tiniest brush you could possibly imagine, and the hooks are all handmade and functional, which I'm honestly quite proud of!

The OF Valegro went along with the tack and blanket as well, because I somehow have accumulated four of them someone needed to model my foray into blanket making!

Despite attending an art school, I made the decision to leave my tack making stuff at home, making this my last set for the foreseeable future. I'm shifting my focus to my other art and the whole going to college thing, so the blog is going to be a little quiet for a while. It honestly feels a bit like the end of an era, and I am so glad to have been able to make my last set one that means so much to me.

I'm sure the Jennifer Show will be an absolute blast, and I can't wait to read all of Jennifer's reports! Good luck to all the entrants and both Jennifer hostesses, and thank you to absolutely everyone who has supported me in my hobby journey thus far. The skills and inspirations I've gathered in this hobby have made me the artist I am today, and I know they'll continue to help me in whatever future endeavors lie in wait. 

:)

Evolution of the Saddle Pad

There was a time when I literally made saddle pads out of paper towels.

This one is actually just cut from an old sock- classy!

As in, rip off a paper towel, cut into rectangular shape, slap it under a saddle and call it a day. Honestly, I don't even think they looked too bad. I mean, they could never get wet or be handled more than maybe twice, but they looked okay. It took me a good two years of experimenting to move on to another thin, textured fabric: aida cloth.

Intended for use in embroidery and cross stitching projects, aida cloth is a somewhat stiff, uniform weave fabric in a grid perfect for 1:32 scale quilting. Most of my 2014 saddles came with simple aida pads, which even at the time felt lazy, but pads were very much an afterthought for me and they got the job done. 

The open weave makes the fabric pretty transparent on its own, somewhat detracting from the quilted illusion. It eventually started to bug me that my pads were simply shapes cut from fancy fabric, and I stepped it up with cotton linings and hand-embroidered borders:

While this was definitely an improvement and looked much more intentional and loved than the previous version, the embroidery (while cute) seemed out of scale.

I've recently been bugged by how the stiffness of the aida makes the pad sit straight across from the withers to hips instead of conforming to the slope of the back. This is much less noticeable under a saddle than with the surcingle set above, but it does make the saddle sit a bit higher off the horse.

Today I should've been working on a five-point breastplate for my current eventing set, but instead I spent a good few hours playing around and making the next iteration of saddle pad:

One that's actually shaped like a saddle pad! I finally have a two-part pattern that allows for a much closer fit along the top line- that and a super neat new method of doing the trim (you can hardly tell in the pics, but there's a fine black border around the outer edges) make me a very happy tack maker. 

I would love to add the straps for the girth to be threaded through as well as a grab strap on the withers, but I'm stuck on finding a fabric/ribbon to mimic that nylon texture in this scale! Those are the kinds of details that make me happy but realistically hardly even show up after the set is all tacked up, so they're not a priority, but it would be adorable.

One of my past drawing teachers used to constantly tell us to give as much "love" to the background of our drawings as we did the foreground, pointing out many a piece with beautifully executed subjects and lazily scribbled shadows in the back. I feel like pads are easy to see as the "background" of the saddle, the less important piece, but when they're given a bit of love and attention, they can really bring that next level of sharpness to a set. 

(Writing this post was definitely not just further procrastination on that breastplate.)

Official Hiatus

I end this mini hiatus to announce... an official hiatus!

I can't remember if I've mentioned this on here before, but I'm going away this summer to attend an art program back east for six weeks.

This is an incredibly exciting opportunity for me, and I can't wait to go, but it does mean leaving the hobby back home in the northwest for a while. I've barely touched anything in the studio since I got home from NW Expo, and I have to say, it's been nice to have a little breather.

Which isn't to say I'm leaving the hobby for good; I still have some orders to fill, and I really would like to get back in the performance showing scene when I have the time.

Today's pictures are of Danielle's gorgeous Melanie Miller custom all outfitted in his new(ish) tack set. 

Melanie is one of my favorite artists, so it was such a treat to be able to see her work up close!

His mane makes me think of fire. I love it.

I hope all your summers are full of sunshine and cold things and friends! And for those of you making the trek to Lexington, have fun!

I'm off to pack a rather large suitcase. 

Back At It

Pending its new owner's approval, this order is finished in record time!

I've also sent in my entry for NW Expo, which is very exciting, and calls for some sprucing up of my performance entries. As evidenced by my last shows, there's nothing glaringly wrong with them- but NW Expo is a very big, high caliber show that calls for my A-game.

Prudence's rider seemed to be a success, so I've decided my OF horse, Blue Jay Way, should have one as well:

And somehow I got it in my head that sculpting a cow from scratch would be a good solution to my lack of non-baby cows.

He's in this awkward half-filled out phase, but hopefully he'll be useable by the show! I might be finally dipping my toe into western after all.

Studio Update: February 26

It's been a crazy month! 

I have so many non-hobby related projects up in the air, I had a big birthday, and I'm working on a total bedroom overhaul that's been sucking up a lot of my time. Luckily, it's looking like things are settling back down, which means more studio time!

The surcingle set is now officially done (awaiting its new owner's approval):

I'm sure it'll look much prettier on the horse it's intended for... this guy needs a lot of help before my March shows. Curse you, cheap primer.

Speaking of my upcoming shows, I have a lot of tack to make for myself- luckily, this long rein set...

...and fugly-but-somewhat-accurate cavalry saddle came together in the snippets of studio time I've had in the past weeks. 

The hand jump is getting a breather while I tackle some tack, but I'm sure there will be much more complaining talking about it on here when I get myself together and finally finish the thing!

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!