Maeve

Thank you very much for your kind compliments. I will be talking with Bill in a couple of weeks, I'm sure! I'm just a bit behind in orders at the moment and need to do some catch up before I start obsessing with something new! LOL! As for pictures, I have a billion of them! I didn't want to bore everyone with all of them! My avatar is a bosal that I made for my sister to match her saddle. She shows POAs and wanted one made for that specifically. I was pleased with the match. Here's another hitched bridle that I made. I love dyeing ... so it is a lot of fun to dye the pulls: And I am particularly proud of this one! It took me the better part of 2 weeks to figure out how to get the Alamar knot in the brow band and yet have it stabilized so it didn't pull out when being used! I'm going to do another one like this in a week or so. I just love the design! Okay ... don't want to wear out the welcome here! :D Thanks again! I will give Bill a call. I've always wanted to try my hand at rawhide but just got involved in kangaroo so heavily that I haven't put forth the effort to move on! Love and Light, Maeve

Thank you very much, Marlon, for your kind words. That bridle was a LOT of work and now I see where I could have done things a bit differently. Maybe some day I'll go back to hitching and do it again! I did some experimental dyeing this afternoon with some rawhide scraps that I had here. It turned out fairly nice but I'll have to wait till I get the good stuff to see how that takes. Since I have 5 new roo hides coming, it will probably be another week or so before I order the rawhide. Then I just have to make up my mind what I want to do with it! :D Should be fun though! I like a new challenge! Love and Light, Maeve

Thank you very much for your kind words and help here. I remember seeing Bill Confer in Gail's book. However ... I didn't know if I needed to know MORE about what I was ordering. As good as Gail is with her explanations, she does leave out some important information as to materials. When I first started braiding roo, I learned that there was chrome tanned, veg tanned and drum stuffed as well as thicknesses in ounces! I didn't have a CLUE as to which one was meant for braiding! Fortunately I had a patient supplier who helped me through the growing pains. So am I to assume here that Bill will know what I need if I call him and plead total ignorance??!? :D Here is another close up of the hitching on that bridle as well as a glimpse of the romal reins that I made to go with it. I did dye the horsehair with the acid dyes which is why I am asking if it will work for the rawhide. I have some cheap scraps here that I should just test. That's how I've always gotten along ..... trial and error! Why stop now! LOL! Thanks again and any other help is much appreciated! Love and Light, Maeve

Well after lurking for a year, I have decided to come out of the closet with a question! I am really impressed with the amount of knowledge that is here! Let me give a little bit of background. I began braiding roo about 5 years ago AFTER I had been horsehair hitching for a couple of years. I had an idea for a bridle and needed to learn to braid in order to do it. Well .... after I learned to braid, the horsehair hitching went to the wayside! LOL! I am self taught by books (I have a BUNCH but Gail's were the greatest help!) and had NO ONE to bounce anything off of in the process. And, no, I didn't do time to learn the hitching! LOL! I'll try to attach the picture here. Since I've not posted, I don't know if this will work! LOL! Anyway ... after all of my years of braiding roo, I have SUDDENLY been having these strong inclinations to braid rawhide! I know nothing about purchasing sides. And, no, I don't want to make my own! :D I've found a few sites that sell them but don't know what weight or who has good quality. Normally I fight through these things alone ... doing research. But this time I've reached a dead end! None of my books say anything about weight, etc.! Here's a few sites that I have found: http://www.appalachianleather.com/rawhide.htm http://www.buckskinleather.com/rawhide.htm http://www.crazycrow.com/Merchant2/merchan...ode=545-400-000 http://www.hermannoakleather.com/3900.html What I would LIKE to do (and I don't know if it is feasible) is to make a few bosal cores first, then cut the rest into strings and learn how to braid with rawhide. So would that all work out of a side? Would I have enough? Also, I have seen some instruction as to cutting strings that differs from each other. Some say to cut strings from a circle as with roo and others suggest cutting strings from strips. Is there a preferred way of doing this and what is the reasoning? What about dyeing? I have professional grade acid dyes here. I know (from my research) that dyeing rawhide is tough to do. Would these acid dyes make the job any easier? Is this too many questions for a first post?? LOL! I'll post this before I get thrown off of the board for asking too much at once! Thanks in advance! Love and Light, Maeve