Equitana 2010 and more supplies

Equitana is only five days away! My friend from interstate, Dan, will be flying over to join me. We've already started plotting out visit. Events we intend to watch are the polo and polocrosse matches, driving (obstacle singles), mounted games, horseball (!), reining, cutting, campdrafting, and a funny little class called jump and drive. It's only a half-hour session so I'm not sure how much we will see, but if it's anything like this YouTube video I found last night, I think it will be fantastic to watch.



A few days ago I received an order from ebay. I lucked out and found some tiny silver tube beads that I'm hoping to use on Western bridles and halters. I found plain 3mm silver tubes, 4mm 'threaded' silver tubes (they look kind of like a spiral or coil compressed together), and tiny 1.5mm round beads. Apparently they are sterling silver, but it's ebay, so who knows?

At first I tried to thread them onto 26 gauge wire, and while the wire fits, I wasn't sure how to fix the wire to the leather, so quickly abandoned that idea and moved onto cotton thread. By tying knots at each end, the thread is secured onto leather with super glue. Unless the thread breaks, the bridle should be pretty secure.

Here's a sample of what the plain tubes and the round beads look like on the classic loping QH:

(Ignore the ear browband; that's for a future blog post.) I'm pretty pleased with how it looks, and will be making a couple of bridles with these beads in the future. I have a couple of stock horses in the mail, so they are a perfect excuse to use these beads!

The beads should be a good size for traditionals too - here is the bridle above held against Ideal's head. (All the beads are silver; that goldy-coloured one is just reflecting something.)

I want to attempt a stock halter with a double row of beads, but am not entirely sure how to go about it. Wire was unsuccessful as mentioned above, and using two cotton threads tied together resulted in the rows being uneven. So perhaps two single threads side-by-side would be more successful?

Speaking of things found on ebay, what do you think of these?

Hot fix rectangles - name plates on halters, perhaps? They are 7mm long, so perhaps only suitable for traditionals.

And some more silver tube beads. These ones have an obvious twist to them. I'm not sure how suitable they would be for tack though - the corners might scratch a delicate paintjob.

The wonders of ebay! (I'm not addicted, really.)

Ooh, forgot one. A while ago I ordered this too-cute micro mini saddle from someone on ebay.  I wasn't overly fond of her bridles, so just went with the saddle and breastplate.

It's really adorable. My task for this set is to make an English bridle, and maybe update the breastplate and stirrups, before Mini Mania live in May next year. I've done a micro mini Western bridle before, but Western bridles are infinitely easier! For a start this bridle will use cotton instead of leather. And I'm foreseeing some kind of coloured 'elastic' breastplate, too... The saddle is by greenacresfarm4 on eBay.