In-Progress – Page 7 – Kristian Beverly

Long Intervals

February 4, 2015December 28, 2024Kristian Beverly4 Comments

It was a happy occurrence to get onto the internet , see Harper Lee trending, realize it was for a good reason. It was announced that To Kill A Mockingbird would have a sequel that will be out this summer. To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my favorite books and is going to be Harper Lee’s first new work in more than 50 years. Breyerfest won’t be the only thing I’ll be looking forward to in the summer!
While it hasn’t been 50 years since I’ve completed an English saddle, it’s been a while. I feel like there is always something to improve on. So I’ve been working on fixing my pattern.
The last couple of weeks has surrounded the attempt to do just that.
There was this saddle. It’s supposed to fit traditional ponies. I bought a couple of tooling tools and experimented with those on it. I didn’t make the under flaps and the panels kind of fell short, but I learned from it and took note of the things to change.

Then there was this saddle which is to fit larger models. There’s still tweaking ahead of it. I saved the pieces of this saddle and will go back to it to finish that pattern.

I finished tweaking the pony pattern today. Or I think so!

Along with the pattern I also decided to dye a piece of my lining leather purple, since purple is my favorite color. I used RIT dye.

It worked well and fast too. I didn’t listen to the ratio directions and dumped dye into hot water. The back of the bottle said something about teaspoons to gallons of water. I know my ratio was far from that! :)

Trying Out A New Pattern

January 31, 2015December 28, 2024Kristian BeverlyLeave a comment

The next saddle I’m making has an upper flap that is different from my other pattern. So it was pattern making time. I only had to make a new pattern for the upper flaps. Everything else was taken from previous patterns, so yay!

I’m also using a different brand of leather dye, and seemed to have dyed the whole thing much darker than I meant to. I’m going to redye it black since you can never have too many black saddles. :)

But I’m happy with the new-ish pattern.

Ripping It Apart

January 11, 2015December 28, 2024Kristian BeverlyLeave a comment

I tore apart a saddle today. I’m still working out the why today part of it. When I first made the saddle, I was really really happy with it. The more I’ve looked at it recently, the more I didn’t like it. It ended up in the bottom of the scary pale of scary started projects even though it was finished. Not today. It was fun, ripping it apart.

I kind of liked it here, minus the remnants from the already pulled parts. Very saddle-y. I tried new things with this saddle, so it was a fun learning experience.