Wiederholen Sie, bitte.

Begin again please, or repeat please, in German. I heard that alot in 8th grade German class. I liked that teacher, but man, he did like to have us repeat stuff until we got it right. And wiederholen we did. He was also the club advisor forthe D&D club. Yeah, he was nerd-cool.


Begin again. This is the mantra of pattern making, even if you are simply reworking an existing pattern.
For the NAN sidesaddle, I wanted to do a bunch of things, some just different and others need to be better. One portion of the pattern that has been bugging me is the tail end of the near side flap. Never laid the way I wanted and doesn't 100% reflect the various references I have. So, wiederholen. Paper patterns are great, but in some places, you have to use leather, which will mean waste. I hate wasting leather but paper won't always lay the way you need it to.


The brown piece at the top is the original pattern. See the curve to the tail-like portion? I took a paper pattern, judged where the curve needed to stop and go straight, and made two intersecting lines to carry the pattern along in the new direction. The first undyed piece is the result. Close but still wonky. And now I'm not likeing where the flap/safe curves around the leaping head. grrrr.


The second piece is better. I fixed the wonky tail. I filled in that curve on the safe. Not bad. I got smart and use very flawed leather to cut out that piece, so I had to copy/cut another one to actually *use.*


Wiederholen. I cut a new piece out of a lovely new hide I bought at the beginning of the month. I start to cut the slot for the fixed head and the stirrup area. Then I notice the obscenely large flaw in the leather, smack in the middle of the flap. Crap. Useless. Completely useless.

Yup, one more time. The dyed piece at the bottom is the one that is actually on the finished saddle. Took 5 hours to get there. The off side flap went thru a similiar process, but it wasn't such a saga. I think I only had to cut it out twice to get that one right.