Keeping it interesting

I used to hate making girths.

Girths always felt like a boring afterthought. They were something I had to make rather than something I wanted to make. If I could have outsourced them, I would have. Happily.

That began to change a few years ago when I ran across the website of the French tackmaker, Laurence Cassin. Her ultra-detailed, hand-stitched girths were the antithesis of boring and utilitarian. It occurred to me that maybe I would enjoy making girths a bit more if I spent more time on them.

My girths got a lot better after that. They are still not my favorite thing to make, but I no longer consider them boring. In fact, I've had some fun recently researching and developing a new dressage girth pattern.

As usual, I started by looking at the real thing.

I selected a girth that was fairly simple in style but had enough details to be interesting.

Since I firmly believe you can never have too many reference pictures...I photographed it from every angle.

Now here's that same girth in 1:9 traditional scale.

Ideally I would have liked it to be a bit narrower but I was limited by the elastic cord. This size (3/8") was a bit wide for my taste but the next size down (1/4") was much too narrow. I could have left it off entirely, but elastic makes girths so much easier to use... When in doubt, I always opt for most user friendly option, which left me with the 3/8" cord.

In any event, I think it looks just fine on the horse.

And that's what matters the most!