A few new tacky things...

Inspired by Nichelle's brilliant tutorial on her blog -link- I decided to make a couple of my Julips some fly protection. We may not get mosquitoes up here but the fearsome midge can be bad enough!

I had to make my own pattern to fit the shape of my chosen model as the original one wouldn't work because of the Cob Stallion's tucked head. Ironically poor Archie the cob no longer owns his fly mask as it was stolen by Lyra the donkey who it fits far better!

I had some absolutely perfect material I'd made a fly mask out of before but in typical EG fashion I couldn't find it. I found several types of fine meshy stuff which worked rather well instead. The one Lyra's modelling was made from some scrap net curtain fabric.



Kerry's is my favourite by far and I really think he likes it...
I used a slightly different material for his and Mitchell's which offers better visibility.

I also made two new saddlecloths. (out of £1 shop dish-towels of all things!) The label showed that they came in four colours - black, red, purple and white but as yet I haven't been able to find the white ones which is very inconvenient as its the colour I want the most! I backed them with felt and used bias binding around the edges to finish them off.





The purple one has been adopted by my new spotty-cob who has finally found herself a name - Maris.



Oh and you may have noticed it in the background of some of my previous post's pictures but I made a mounting block aaaaaages ago out of styrene. I made the steps a little too narrow but it's ok for the child riders who don't have such big feet. I can't decide whether or not to paint the sides, leave them white or clad them with wood effect panels...Hmmm....