NMTM – Progress Report #1

So far, my project for NMTM is off to a good start. I’m going to attempt to document as much of it as I can this month, so there will probably be a lot of blog posts about it. 😛

I started by clearing off my work space and gathered some of the materials. I’m paranoid about making tack for resins (I think this is why I’ll be an OF girl always, haha!) so Woodbridge has a soft piece of material to cover him up. I feel a little better about moving him around my desk now.

I’ve decided to start with the bridle first, beginning with the noseband. Yes, I skive lace on a wooden block. No, I don’t recommend it, as it’s easy for the blade to get stuck in the wood. But it’s what I’ve got for now. I’ve found it easier to have the lace up higher while skiving. I don’t hunch over quite as much this way, and it helps me keep the blade as horizontal as possible, helping reduce the amount of times I slice through the lace. (well, sometimes)

Skiving lace has gotten easier for me too. I use a lot of short, light strokes, taking off layers of fuzz rather than big pieces. It’s more time consuming that way but it seems to work for me. 🙂

Anyway, I cut the noseband out of a piece of 1/4″ lace, then after skiving it, added two loops for the cheek pieces. After cutting off the excess to shape it, I added stitchmarking and a decorative bit of “stitching” in the center. This would have shown up a lot better if I had used tooling leather instead of lace, so I went over it with a touch of gold paint to bring it out instead.

The second piece of the noseband is super tiny:

The ends of the straps are glued to the underside of the noseband piece. I covered those ends with very thin strips of lace, to add a little more strength. There’s probably a better way to do this but I think it’ll work for now.

On the horse:

I figured this was a good stopping point for the day- hooray for progress!