Starting to go Wild

 

 While we were driving back from an errand last week, my husband achieved immortality in Punner's Galaxy.  He's always been a punster but this was a new high.  I felt the hit all through my tackshop and beyond, touching my life, my nation and my very soul.  And we were just talking about a pair of reins!

 "Ferrules," he said, "Aren't those the little beads that are starting to go wild?"

 I literally laughed all the way home!

Sassy being played with

 The more I look at this most unusual pair of romal reins, the more I think they have, indeed, gone wild.  They appear to be the result of trying to blend two traditions in tackmaking that ought not, perhaps, have been blended.  One tradition is making ferruled leather reins in black leather, which the majority of full scale parade sets have.  The other tradition, I see now, was my own strong bent towards making braided (rawhide) reins.  (Now how could that have happened?!!  :)  Sometimes hybrids work, but this one, alas, is giving me some powerful vibes that perhaps, just perhaps, the third time will be the charm.  These were the second try.  The first try left no pictures and its parts were disassembled and remade into what you see here.

The quirt has "TSII" on one side and curlicues on the other.

 Making these reins has been like pulling teeth.  I published my book at the end of August 2025 and said I wanted to return to making tack.  Yet here it is nearly 5 months later and all I've made has been a couple of braided bridles (and a breastcollar).  With over 500 saddles under my belt, what the heck is the hangup?  I'm really struggling,... and NaMoPaiMo is about to wallop me.

 These reins are the first concrete evidence of my next saddle, TSII #458.  It is to be my own silver parade set.  It is to be for Kotinga, my hopefully soon-to-be-palomino NaMoPaiMo victim;  but it's also supposed to fit Sassy*, my Stone Half-Arab Mare, Kotinga's wife.  I haven't made a parade set for myself since 1997 (#400), and I haven't made a saddle at all, period, since 2020 (#457, Eleanor's Goehring).  As it happens, the last 4 saddles I completed have all been silver Parade sets.  (TSII #456 Star Wars, #455 Miller's Hexagon and #454 Silver Tipped.)  Number 454 was finished in 2015, eleven years ago -- more than a decade! -- so you can see how truly rusty I am.

I'm thinking that rustiness is partly to blame that I would take so long to spin up making just a pair of romal reins.  The first try was braided thread, black and brown;  but parts were too slender and the riendas (hand parts) were too stiff.  The second try you see here, also stiff (!), a strange combination of braided covers over hot-oiled dark leather, with black sinew connectors.  I wanted a darkest-brown-but-not-black color, and I think also that this requirement is to blame.  Sinew doesn't come in that color, hence the attempts at thread blending.

A quick thank you to Heather Moreton, who told me about the existence of black dental floss and saw to it that I had some.  That material, so silky-smooth it is hard to braid with! is used in these rein coverings.  Look at the last pic for a better glimpse of this floss.

Saddles are my bread-and-butter, the main source of TSII work and fame.  I have always wanted to come back to them.  The trigger for Kotinga's is the story of the so-called Russian parade set, a blog subject if ever there was one!  You have seen glimpses of it, in my Christmas letter and in the Spiro Arrives post.  As with Kotinga, there are many strands to its story, and it is a very personal tale.  Be patient with me.  The best stories take time.

Above:  Note how the liquid silver ferrule seam edges don't quite meet.  This tiny imperfection was done on purpose.  The leather width necessary for strength is just a scoosh too large for the ferrules.  (I think I trimmed it a little too thin in a few places.)  When polished, the silver glints are so eye-catching that the brain does not notice the gap.

These reins really fought me and there were mistakes along the way.  Below, the foldover at the end broke and popped out when I pulled on its loop.  Now I had to fix it.  Five of its 7 ferrules await re-installation while I figured out how to make the leather longer.  The answer was to splice on a whole new piece of lace, at the braid start slit.  

So much for shorter blog posts.  Ain't gonna happen, I guess.  But this one has made me remember the reins for #456 used black sinew, with silver ferrules.  

TSII #456, Star Wars.  Handmade medallions

Either I will accept black reins instead of darkest-brown ones (the so-called Russian has black);  or I will figure out how to dye plain rawhide ones.  I guess sometimes it takes three times to find the right answer. 

*At least for now, 'Sassy' has taken over as this mare's name, and "Tawny" is on hold. 

I asked my husband how long it had taken him to think up that pun about ferrules (ferals).  In a Tom Brier moment, he said "Just Now!"  Tom Brier is the ragtime pianist I have included links to in my Christmas letters and whose performances I am so madly in love with.  Here's the appropriate one:  Super Mario Land Birabuto.   Only 2:55 long, it's one of ragtime's greatest impromptu performances.  On the paper he was given the simple theme -- the first time through the tune - - nothing else.  He'd never seen it before.  Everything that follows he made up on the spot, 'ragging' it in the best possible fashion.

I'll leave this post on his note of happy perfection.