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Saddle Making Training – Week 1
Back in November (2017) I attended another training session at the Saddlery Training Centre in Salisbury...to embark upon the Level 2 Saddle Making training. According to the City and Guilds Level 2 Saddlery specification I am required to make a pony saddle using a wooden saddle tree. The seat must be pigskin or hide, the skirts and flaps must be solid with knee rolls and gussets being optional. The panel should be a Continental or Saumur type and the filling should be wool only. Here is my 16.5" pony saddle wooden tree that I was welcomed with...
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New Year’s Resolutions, Goals, Plans or Dreams?
I don’t know about you but I stopped making New Year Resolution’s when I was a teenager. I mean really, who has kept to the ‘I must lose weight’ statement anyway? For years I never made a bold statement or even make any plans for the future. I lived for the moment and that was fine by me at that time. For as long as I can remember I’ve wrote in a diary or journal about what is happening in my life at that given moment: who I love; who I don’t love; what events I’ve been to; and any juicy gossip I’ve heard. Nowadays I tend to write my…
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Starting Level 3 in Bridle Making…
A couple of weeks ago I attended my fourth week of training at The Saddlery Training Centre. Following my successful completion of Level 2 Bridle Making, I was now to go straight onto Level 3 (in Bridle Making). So for my first practical piece I was tasked with making a stallion in-hand bridle with a fixed nose band, fancy stitching and a clencher brow band. I chose a rich brown coloured leather called ‘Conker’ from the store and decided to use brass clenchers and buckles as well as stitch it in a yellow contrasting thread. I like working with a contrasting thread because if you go wrong it stands out…
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I Learnt A New Skill
What do you do at the weekend when you have been at the office all week and juggled meal times, after school clubs and homework? Well, whilst many of you are catching up on the housework or doing family packed activities, I am doing all those things as well as doing leather repairs, making accessories, designing new products, networking on social media and this weekend I learnt a new skill. On Saturday, I travelled to Northampton to attend a Leather Carving workshop at Tandy Leather. This is a skill whereby you cut a design into the leather and emboss it using specially designed stamps. You then finish the leather by…
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Training Week #2
Hello… …it’s my first day back at the Saddlery Training Centre today (25th July) and I have picked straight up where I left off in May. If you remember I had completed the headcollar earlier than anticipated so I was allowed to go on and cut the straps for the next assessment piece – a snaffle bridle. I had managed to cut them all to length, shape the ends of each strap and then edge them. I had initially said I was going to finish the bridle at home (to assessment quality) so that I could get on with the practical and theory exams but life took over a little…
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What Is A Saddler?
The definition of a Saddler is 'a person who makes, repairs, or sells saddlery'.
