More leather

Occasionally I will google variations of "buy kangaroo leather" just to see if anything new pops up. Last weekend I discovered www.kangarooleather.com.au which is based in Tasmania, though it looked like they only sold hides. (At least they have some nice colours!)

On a whim I dropped them an email asking if they had any remanant or offcut bags, and was delighted to find out 500g bags are only $10 plus shipping. So I snapped one up and requested browns, as I don't have any really nice browns at the moment.

A few days later I received a huge lot of leather in two shades. According to the colour on the website, the tanny-one is 'roan' and the darker one is 'brandy'. I think there's also some 'saddle tan' in there too though I forgot to put it in the pic. Oops. The brandy is a lot lighter in person though.

It's lovely and thin - less than 1mm but I'm no expert - and with more flexibility and softness to it than my hide from Amazing Lace. It skives nicely too, although right at this minute I can't get it paper-thin like I can the Amazing Lace. But I could just need a new blade.

I can't imagine using the brandy colour at any point (it's the shade that chocolate goes when it's bloomy, or like milky coffee) so will probably make up a grab bag with some other stuff I have here and sell it on MHSP.  But the roan and saddle tan will definitely stay!

I also picked up a grab bag of scraps off ebay for $5. According to the listing it's mostly kangaroo, but I don't know what the lady was thinking. There's all sorts of stuff in here.

Here's the bag with the stuff I'm not keeping:

and the stuff I am keeping:

I do think the neon might be fun! It's really thick but we'll see if I can skive that down.

Performance Extravaganza Live Show 2012 - part 2 OF

Here's the OF division from PEL this year. Pics after the cut!

Performance Extravaganza Live Show 2012 - part 1 - CM/AR

The second PEL show was on yesterday. Technically I co-hosted it with Lisa Winkworth, but she was awesome and did all the work, so she gets full credit for a brilliant show.

Unfortunately, interest was low; aside from Lisa and myself, only four others turned up. Still, the competition was fierce! The show was divided into two divisions: CM/AR and OF, both with the same class list (roughly 18 classes each). We had a late start, with judging by Karen Grigson of Bluebird Studio fame beginning at 10.30am.

Lots of pics after the cut!

Doorstop

(Before you ask: yes, I really am that mean to my models. I have one named Fluffy; what did you expect?)

Lionswood Benjamin, stable name Doorstop, started out as a Christmas gift from my BFF Stacey. He's a classic-size BHR Drafter resin. There was a reason for his bargain basement price of $25 US - he was unpainted, but had been poorly prepped. After his purchase from MHSP, we sent him straight to the magical Gina Hyatt of Dog Hair Studio, who worked hard to remove his previous layer of primer, and restored the body to his smooth and detailed glory.

She then passed him onto Karen Zorn. After some discussion I decided I wanted a Suffolk Punch, so sent her lots of reference pics and asked her to sculpt some mane bobbles, and braid his tail. She did just that, giving him gorgeous maroon and dark green ribbons, and changing the mould's swishy tail to one with some serious braided detail. Just check out that butt!

He arrived to me this past Tuesday, just a few days before a live show - the last one in my state of Victoria for a long time. Desperate to make sure he got out and shown before DUN (Australian version of NAN), I worked super hard to make him a stallion surcingle and bridle in time.
 

Did you know there is very little documentation online for showing Suffolk Punches? With little choice but to copy from photos and wing it, I scoured Flickr, tried to spot what was the most common, and copied that. The tack, as it tends to do, fought me the entire way. I redid both the surcingle and bridle twice before I was happy with them (read: I had no time to do them again).

His doll is a custom Heidi Ott doll by the talented Joan Yount in the US, and she arrived just a day after Doorstop - talk about cutting it fine! She's dressed in the British style of light-coloured pants, and a 'tweed' jacket (Joan couldn't get tweed in scale, so we went for solid green). She doesn't have a name yet, but I think it will need to be something British.

I packed them up and carted them off to Performance Extravaganza Live Show this past Sunday, which is an all-performance live show, split by finish. He surprised me by winning his Other Performance class with his led entry (and hand-written explanation card!), and then going on to win Supreme Champion CM/AR, against some seriously tough competition. I've been going to live shows for over five years, and he was my first Supreme Champion - I was so ecstatic I very nearly cried!

He wasn't in any danger of going anywhere before, but his win has cemented his place on my shelf!

(I do plan on redoing his surcingle again. The leather I used is crap and coated, meaning any areas glued on the top tend to peel off, taking the coating with it (you can see it near the girth billets). I touched up the bare spots with Tandy Java dye for the show, but I think it will let me down if I were to use it at DUN. So, expect to see a set like this on here in the near future!)

Here comes the pre-show panic...

I'm sick at the moment (again) so while I would much rather be working on a bridle for once of Karen's ponies, I'm instead doing myt entry form for PEL, which is next Sunday. This show is all performance, split by finish (CM/AR and OF). There's no scene class, either.

Why yes, I am mad. I'm not showing my run list because our judge, Karen Grigson (yes, the Karen who CMed the ponies) will; be the judge, and I don't want her to know exactly what I'm bringing.

Hope you will have had your Weet-Bix next Sunday, Karen!

Tacky tack

While brtowsing online today, looking for inspiration for a project, I stumbled across something that made my heart skip a beat.

Anyone who knows me relatively well knows I'm obsessed with stars, so this little beauty went right into my reference file!

It's got hair-on cowhide inside the stars (blegh), but can you imagine it with metallic silver inside? And that tooling! I need a barrel racer mare, stat!

They also had a heart-style version too.


ONE DAY, I will find someone to make this star set, and a matching saddle, for me!

I kept looking through their store, and then found this monstrosity, which inspired the title of today's post:

It's metallic (coated leather, I suppose) with conchos and studs.


I mean, I'm sure someone out there will love it, but it ain't me!

Karen's Ponies

I'm way behind the eight-ball in sharing these delights with you guys. This isn't a tack-related post - yet.

Back in March of this year, fellow Victorian and general all-around-awesomeness-personified Karen Grigson posted on Blab, looking for commissions for her customising work. Knowing the quality of her work (she sculpted the Graylea Whisper (classic!) resin last year), I jumped on it like a shot, but didn't expect at all to have an order that would interest her, let alone even get in in the first place.

Surprisingly, not only had the slots not been filled by that time, but she also took an interest in one of the suggestions I offered for her to choose from: a pair of classic Welsh Ponies for a harness pair.

The above is the original picture I sent for her to work from. (Photo from the fantastic Mike Watts.)

In just a few short months, the ponies were finished. I just about squealed when Karen sent me photos the first time.

Affectionately named 'Legs Up' and 'Legs Down' for now, the ponies are a true testament to Karen's talent. Would you have guessed that they were from Breyer Midnight Tangos?

Just look at those expressive Welshy faces!

In true Karen style, they have an abundance of hair,

and hairy fetlocks.

There are even eyelashes!

About a month ago, I sent them off to Deb Brown in the UK to be finished. My original choice was for them to be bright flaxen chestnuts with one of the ponies in sabino, but at the last minute I changed my mind and went with smutty buckskin, and let Deb choose who was the sabino one, and the markings on them both. My only request was that they be similar but not exact. In halter they will be in the same breed classes together - I wanted them to at least be in different colour classes!


There's a group on Facebook called the Deb Brown Appreciation Society. Some of the members had reported that their CMs had taken six months or more to be finished, so I took measurements for the ponies and sent them off, content to work on their tack while I waited for them to come home.

Clearly Deb had different ideas, as barely two weeks later she sent me photos of the finished ponies!

They will be in the mail tomorrow. Mail from the UK generally takes about two weeks, but they will still, unexpectedly, be in time for Performance Extravaganza Live Show on September 23. I guess I better get working on those bridles, then!

Quiet...

I don't have a lot to stay at the moment. I've been ill this week and too sooky-la for my own good. And definitely not working on any tack.

I finished the Polo Pony's bridle and breastplate last Sunday.

I thought about putting on a running martingale, but his head is already high up. I also thought about putting white padding on the breastplate, a ha this one here, but I think the white would be too stark against his shoulder. Black would blend in more nicely, but his bridle has white highlights. Oh well.

You can't see it too well in the photos, but his bridle is all working tongue buckles.  I do have a post drafted away half-heartedly in my head about my tongue buckle discovery. Maybe I'll get to it one day.

I also kind of wanted to make a saddle to show with at PEL, but I don't think that's going to happen. There's still a month to the show, but knowing how well I procrastinate... yeah. I wouldn't even get the pattern finished before then, realistically.

Speaking of live shows...

I'm hosting Performance Live Extravaganza (PEL) with Lisa again in September. But this year, we are doing things a little differently - splitting by finish, rather than size. The minis had a poor turnout, so we're hoping this should balance things out a little bit more. I personally am really excited for it, as I have a few OFs that usually get beaten by resins and it will be fun to see how they do on their own.

Late last year, I picked up a Breyer Polo Pony on a bit of a whim, thinking he would be a good games pony.

(Pic from this random place here:http://dogperson.org/DPS/equines/Breyer/classic.htm)


This guy is older than me - he was released in 1974 and was available until 1982. He's in pretty good nick for his age, although his base is a bit warped. That's a shame, because the Polo Pony has a weird triangle-shaped peg in the foot which makes a temporary base almost impossible. :(

While he would be a good polo entry (obviously), I don't have time to make all the wondrous strap goods that a polo pony wears, nor do I want to add slits to one of my existing saddles to make it a polo one. So into the games class he shall go - but which game should he be playing?

There is sword lancers (bit difficult without a doll to hold the sword!):

 

Pole bending aka Speedweavers (probably too fast for this one):

Maybe he can do Socks and Buckets:

or Litter Lifters (look at the air on that pony!)

Or maybe even the Associate Race:

 
While I haven't decided yet, you can be sure he will be wearing an obnoxious, fluoro 'PVC' bridle!

And maybe some crazy boots for good measure!

I will also have my BHR Drafter resin home from Karen Zorn by then as well. He looks like this, only Karen has added some wonderful detailed mane and tail ribbon bob thingys.

I don't have any dolls that are appropriately dressed for an in-hand class, and I think that might rule him out of ground driving too. He's not going fast enough for Jennifer Buxton's famous draft horse barrel racing, so I don't know what that leaves for him. Any ideas?

Ultimate Gold 2012

BFF Stacey ran Ultimate Gold live show over the weekend, and I flew in for a 46-hour visit so I could attend and help out.

With a small number of entrants, it was intimate and relaxed, with a small class list. I was super-prepared for performance - that never happens! - and the venue, which we'd never used before, was a comfortable size, with great facilities.

With us we had new-to-model-horses Juanita, who has lots of experience in the real horse world, but was pretty unfamiliar with hobby. Still, with a little guidance she made a great judge. She looked after performance, collectability and CM/AR halter; Stacey judged workmanship, and I judged OF halter.

Let's get into the photos. There's a lot, so jump behind the cut to have a looksee.