DyeHard 1

Okay, I'm addicted to dyeing yarn. Way too addicted. Today I tried to make two different styles of ombre yarn. One way I liked, the other I am never doing again.

What I liked. Putting one end of the skein in the dye bath to saturate, then gradually putting more in so that it dilutes. Then new color and repeat with other side. It worked well and I can't wait to see how the yarn fairs on my hat test. Hat test is to see how the color pans out in a back and forth strip (the brim of my hat) and in rounds (as in the upper portion of the hat).

Yummy yarn bath!!!! Ignore the ball. The ball is bad. It is angry second way...

I dipped the other side in blue and wahlah.

The second way involved soaking the yarn, *making a yarn ball, dyeing the yarn ball until the dye penetrated it, removing the yarn from dye bath, rinsing, changing dye bath color, *unwinding ball into second reverse ball, putting back in dye bath, pulling out and *unraveling so it could dry. It tangled at every step you see an *, so I had to undo a yarn barf 3 times. It was not fun. And it made the yarn pill badly because it was played with when wet...

Adventures in yarn dyeing

While I mainly focus on model horse stuff, I do often spend time crocheting... to the point that my college roommate started affectionately calling me the Mad Hooker, kinda like the mad hatter? Anyway, I've been entranced with etsy's selection of hand dyed yarns but I could never convince myself to buy any because it is soooo expensive. I get it, handdyeing takes time and resources. I'm sure those folks are charging a perfectly fair price and everything but I also had a pinterest pin saved for dyeing yarn in a crock pot. Yarn dyeing is probably a lot more complex in big batches but I just wanted to try it a little bit. Boy was I shocked at how well it went.

I got a nice crockpot from goodwill and some *naked* superwash merino wool yarn...

I added some dyes I picked up off of amazon. Jacquard dyes are the bomb but they are more expensive on amazon than at knitpicks. Now you know.

And bada bing bada boom that yarn turned out fantastic!!!!

Sooooooo pretty I just had to make something with it right?

Messy bun hat? Definitely makes a nice messy bun hat!

 Just look at how cool the colors look! Such a vibrant variegation pattern. It reminds me of the camo yarn red heart sells but way deeper colors.

Pink Bridle Going live

Improvements:

• Stitch marks on browband and side pieces. 
• Custom shaped side pieces
• Everything is adjustable, even the chin strap (not usually the case, I'm afraid)
• Reins are re-attachable and adjustable
• Leather conchos around the sparkle conchos

Things that I need to work on:

• None of the buckles have tongues (oh my). Need to get myself the proper gauge of wire for this!
• Stitch marks are only in some places, not all...
• Uneven stitch marks! (Could be fixed if I purchase a pounce wheel or practiced a lot more)
• Colorful, yes. Intricate, not even close. Need to work on details!!!!
• Generalized bulk reduction.

Anyway it is now up on my etsy for $25. Edit: Sold! I've learned a lot and I think it looks pretty good. Here of some pics of it on Cupcake.

Think Pink

My bridle making skills are at this point at a cobble together some leather lace level. But you can't really tool leather lace or even dye it very well. That's when I came across this post: . Sure rio rondo will sell you a kit for an english bridle but they won't tell you that your product won't look nearly as nice or realistic as a lot of the current makers. Instead you really need to be cutting your own leather lace from tooling leather so that it can be tooled (gasp. how the tables have tabled). And with this in mind I embarked on my current product: a pink bridle with gymkhana reins and normal reins. Another thing to learn, making reins that can be switched but that is a later problem.

As you can kinda see, I've tooled stitch marks on all the pieces so far. I've got the browband and two cheek pieces "done". (I'm working on sparkle conchos because why not so they'll be getting a bit more decor in a bit).

Custom Color English Saddles Now for Order

Inspired by my green saddle, I'm going to be opening a listing to make custom order english saddles. These saddles will be made to match my printed stirrup colors so there's a rainbow of possibilities. Since I might have to order more rio rondo supplies to do this, the time window for shipping will be over around 2 weeks and the price will be increased a bit but I feel that having a custom colored saddle might be worth that.

This is the style of saddle.

The stirrup color, knee roll color, seat color, and stirrup keeper color will all match and be choose-able. 

The saddle color will be either this brown, rust, or neutral for now, I might add in black at a later date.


I'm hoping to improve my girth for the next saddle, to make it more realistic.

Eventually I'd like to offer matching bridles but my bridle making is in need of improvement. I need to work on making more delicate pieces. Overall I'd say at my current level, they lack sophistication. 

Going Green

HBK9 was different... It was my first english saddle and I was so nervous. Kinda like how nervous I was making my first rio rondo western saddle but double that because I didn't do it from a kit. I have had the Keri Okie English saddle with tree book for about two years and I finally put it to good use. And I botched that too. So the original knee rollers defeated me... And I didn't have enough leather to retry them so in my last rio rondo order I got some more... And then I made the decision that the saddle needed more color so... green...

My skirt with knee rolls looks okay. Next time I'll bulk up the knee padding so that the edge looks better. It is a little sunk in at the moment.

Then I put the skiver over the seat and left it overnight to dry. But wait?

Oh no! My clamp left a print that I just can't get rid of!

Luckily I had more skiver and I also last minute decided that the seat needed to be green as well. ;P

I am in love with this color combination...

Cutting out skiver for over the bottom flaps. I had to read over this whole part about 20 times before I figured out kinda how to do it.

Then everything got dyed. Somehow I forgot to make this part initially or something. I dunno.

Lots of confusion. Lots of resetting. Lots of regluing. And now it is a saddle. I think it looks pretty nice.

Making me a girth for this... Yay!

Gotta try everything on the horse, of course! I also used my 3D printed green stirrups which kinda match the color. I think the color matching is the hardest part of this... 

Anyway, this saddle and it's girth should find their way onto etsy in the next couple of days along with this lovely purple gaming bridle. Edit: The green saddle has sold.

Dinosaurs Love Grapes

They also really like fun colored gaming bridles!

So much that they just had to try it on...

And they'd like to say that a new one will be coming soon to my etsy shop!

HBK8 is all done!!!!

Yes it should not have taken me a month to do the last bits on the saddle and make a bridle... But did it? Also yes. Alas, I am running out of motivation and my job search in the Austin area is really to blame... not so good. Which is why I am so grateful to the folks buying stuff from my etsy shop. Kari likes to eat... and pay rent. So thank you so much. If you haven't checked out my etsy shop yet, the link is posted on this blog along with a very nice coupon code to your right. Just saying.

So picture time!