On the ropes

 When we left off, the headstall of my IMTM bridle was complete. 

Time to start on that mecate!

I stopped my the craft store on the way home from the barn and bought some appropriately colored embroidery floss.

Winslow's actual mecate is four strand twisted alpaca rope. I've made a lot of two strand twists, but never anything more than that. After watching a couple YouTube videos, I decided to simplify things a bit and try a three strand twist first.

Okay, that was much easier than I expected it to be!

On to the slobber straps.

Operating under the theory that you can never have too many reference photos, I went back to the source and took a few more.

This angle was particularly helpful.

Back at home, the next step was to find a piece of leather that looked similar to that burgundy latigo. This will do nicely!

Unfortunately, it was a thick cut. This made for a lot of prep work.

So much.

After that was done, it was time for pattern making.

I've always enjoyed this step.

Each slobber straps was made of two pieces, one with a buckle and one with a longer strap. I cut them out with a more simplified shape and glued them together.

Then I used a full scale hole punch to make the indents on each side.

The end result.

I buckled the slobber straps onto the bit rings.

Then I added the mecate.

This bridle is almost done.