September 1, 2008. Finally!! After much too long (but wait until you hear what we've been doing!), and with great appreciation of your patience, the Timaru Star II model tack shop is pleased to present our latest saddle!!! #449, destined for M. Suchow. You may remember the last bit of coherent sense out of me was a wish to do a "dark morph" or dark version of TSII #446, the Peach Rose, which I was so proud of and loved so much. The Peach Rose had a great deal of new technology, and was followed by two more saddles that positively shone with the stuff. Now that the glory days of BreyerFest have damped down somewhat (or at least worn off a little), it is time to get on with the business that made us famous in the first place: Western Saddles. After two years with only two saddles, we are happy indeed to watch the numbers piling up. If I dared I'd start wondering what lies in store for #450!!
What we have here is indeed the "dark morph" or black (melanistic) phase of #446...named: Blue Rose!! The saddle uses the same handsculpted Fimo tree approach -- believe me, that is the HARD way to make a saddle!! because each piece has to be custom-fitted. We almost came to grief when the seat appeared too small. But the gorgeous outline, deep seat, tall cantle, unique and individual shoulder silhouette make the payback. The color here is achieved by starting out with a reddish dye, then layering on the dark brown/chocolate dye, which has no red of its own. The result is a rich deep-toned dark brown... yet not enough red to clash with the blue braiding.
THIS is what I wanted to try: the turquoise-and-white braiding where Peach Rose was brown-and-white. Once again the highest price to pay was a result of handcrafted labour. All turquoise thread on this saddle was hand twisted (spun) from two smaller threads, simply because the store stopped carrying my standard heavy thread in the color I wanted, "parrot" turquoise.
When the first few blue-and-white braids were done, I knew I had a knockout, and doing all of Blue Rose's braiding in this color would be too loud. So I chose to do some areas in plain rawhide, our standard dyed pale-yellow. Even this decision was tempered with the back skirt lacing, which was done in artificial sinew: that particular seam needed a broadly-spreading material. Thread would have been too small. Proportion is everything in miniatures...
One charming and truly new idea on Blue Rose can be seen here with the back cinch keeper. Peach Rose did not have a back cinch, but this set was intended for working. I can't say where the idea came from, but I knew I could do it. Notes taken on TSII #445, Braided Citrines, provided the means. Having done one successfully, I drew a picture and then created the second keeper. Needless to say, I have not seen this on any real Western saddle... but it really seems to go well with the overall flavor and presence. In a fit of madness I took to calling this saddle my 'blue-eyed Negro.'
Something which does NOT go well, of course, is the blanket. For the full story on #449's blanket, see our Sneak Peek page. This is a case of "not finished yet," and you will have to wait, just the same as I, to see how the ending comes out. The yellow blanket seen in the picture is not intended to be the final one; it was merely what I had on hand that would best do the job of displaying this piece. This saddle has taken more than a month already and I felt I could not delay photography and display any longer; but as you will discover, such pressures lead all too easily to mistakes!! By the way, the bridle has not been made yet (can you say 'busy?').
What have I been so busy at??
This is one of those cases where I'm going to let the picture do the talking. The date is August 3; the location is Prince Gallitzin State Park in Pennsylvania (that is Lake Glendale in the background). The red boat is a 15-foot Wenonah canoe; the name on the bow is 'Indefatigable.' My husband named the boat and took the picture. The car is of course Zipporro (Zippy). Now you see why we had to let Rosy, the 1990 Toyota Pickup truck, go to another home...
The purple thing on me is a state-of-the-art, very advanced life jacket. It has velcro pockets which are indispensible! The odd purplish thing I'm carrying is a bottle of grape Koolade. The little sedan chair in the canoe, bow position, is a treat we bought to reward ourselves for 80 hours of paddling, and incidentally to save Sue's back, which it does quite satisfactorily. What you can't see in the picture, because it hadn't been bought yet, is a red hardshell cooler to take the place of the grey food pack (tied to thwart). Laugh if you like, but the cooler was bought because Sue complained once too often she had no way to bring a horse with her. A hardshell case was needed, but I didn't have one -- and space was very limited. The answer to everything was to combine the food carrying (which has its own hard cases) with the horse carrying. Pony Pouches forever! No, we haven't rolled yet. But if we ever should, I am confident nothing will be flood-damaged. In a boat you have to ask EVERYTHING the question: what happens if you get wet? Ask the keys, watch, clothes, glasses, I mean everything...
The peace and serenity, the floating lofty feeling, are all well worth it... and as for pair bonding: try it!
Here is #446, Peach Rose, for reference purposes. Finished in April of 2008, it was one of those cases where the blanket and the bridle came first. The bridle came before all, by a long shot. It was made in the fall of 2004, inspired by Julia Harmon's braided-floss bridles with Hill Tribes silver beads. I was insanely proud of my Peach Rose bridle -
- it was a first for me in so many ways, with its color and material. The blanket followed, later that winter, and is identified with Shenandoah NP, where we vacationed. With these 2 pieces I was envisioning, even then, a natural-color Western saddle with white, dark brown and pink color accents -- to be made with the help of Keri Okie's "Tooling the Miniature Roper Saddle" booklet, which had also come out in 2004.
There are a ton of "firsts" to the Peach Rose. It was the first to contain a self-made saddle tree. It's the second TSII saddle to have a real tree at all (the first was #438, Buffalo Bill). It was the first to use another tackmaker's tooling patterns: this is Keri Okie's Poppy Garden II. Thus it is my first Western saddle based on Keri Okie's patterns and approaches. It's the first to have what I consider a true gullet, made with a tree yet still having my own wire-core horn, with wires connecting to the base plate (skirt), giving the strength and security I so desire in a Western saddle. The huge high gullet, very nearly oversize! can be explained by fitting one's thumb under that arch; remember this was the first tree I ever sculpted. While I love the individual results, I quail at the thought of repeating the effort of custom-fitting patterns... haven't solved this one yet.
(BEN-sum-uh) (TIM-uh-roo). My eBay name is timaru-star-ii. This page updated approximately every two to four months.