It's been a productive day here, as you can see by the chaos on my work desk! I had such big plans for my five weeks of winter break, but that didn't turn out as I had hoped. Personal stuff, work, the holidays, a big dye spill on the carpet, and a serious lack of motivation have kept me away. Still, I have two english sets completed and made a lot of progress on my donation to Show for The Cure.
The english sets have been technically done for a week or so, just waiting on last minute details like missing keepers (I always forget the throatlatch!) and painting stirrup pads. That got finished up today, and I'll be sending final shots off to owners tomorrow since the winter light is already pretty bad at five o'clock. In case anyone wondered, the thread is wrapped around Working Girl and the G4 mold to train the stirrups on the english saddles ;)
My donation to this year's S4TC will be a reining set for the G4/WEG reiner. He's a neat little horse, and despite some aesthetic issues with the head and mane/tale, I like him. I'm sure there's some mechanical issues there, but I don't have the eye to see them. The saddle is tan with a smooth brown seat and just a little silver for "pop". The near side ties up with a latigo (properly tied, too!) and the offside adjusts with a billet strap. I don't recommend undoing the latigo...it's pretty easy to adjust the offside billet. If you're used to it, it's not hard to tie the latigo with a pair of tweezers, but there's never time for that at a show!
School starts on Tuesday for me, so my time in the studio will be reduced. How much depends on how hard College English I and Psychology are. As it is, I'm planning a post on previous donations to S4TC. I've donated for the past 4 or 5 years, and it will be neat to see how much I've improved.