Thursday, December 22, 2011

What Blessi is getting for Christmas--A Hand Hooked Saddle Pad

One of my hobbies is felting and needle work. So I decided to make Blessi a saddle pad for Christmas.   I found these neat on-line directions for an old style cowboy hooked saddle pad made with roving and burlap. I have been working on getting a Western saddle to go over the pad.  I ordered the wool roving from this site:

http://www.thesheepshedstudio.com/Roving.html

I ordered five pounds of roving in chestnut and cream--to match my pony. The roving was high quality and easy to work with. Well, the saddle pad turned out beautifully!!! Here is a picture--please note nobody was at the stable that day and my horse Blessi thought it was silly to hold up his head just for a picture when there was grass to eat.
Here are the online directions for making a pad:
http://www.ehow.com/how_5024333_make-hooked-wool-saddle-p...

If you are making a 32 X 32 inch pad, you need all 5 lbs of roving. The pad is about 2 inches thick but will compress down to slightly less than 1 inch under the saddle. I did not have enough left over roving to finish the cat bed that I started. And the process takes a lot of time. If somebody wants to do a more precise pattern, they will probably want to order more wool to make sure they have enough of a certain shading.

WASU on his favorite bed.
Everyone (including my cats) want to snuggle with the pad and take a nap on it.

I just reordered more roving to make a black and cream English style saddle pad.

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