I'm still here.....just not on here

I have been slacking in my posting....a lot! Have been doing lots of things just haven't been posting, sometimes writing just seems like too much work to do after a long day.

I have been making more saddle pads and sold some, Gilly and I have been doing some work. Even did some cantering and I am learning to try and be more balanced so both of us can have better rides. If I am out of balance I throw him off so he stops, can't say I blame him.

Nice trot Gilly!

We even cantered and it felt good. Went to Sheri's to take a lesson in the CoverAll arena, so nice......wish I would hit the lottery then maybe....yea, right! LOL

Some more saddle pads.....

These two pads I made for my neighbor Kim and her horse Messina. Like the last one, kind of whimsical don't you think? Flower Power and Peace signs!

This one is all wool made for an eventing friend. White wool and pink wool stars with black trim.

LOVE, LOVE, LOVE this one! My husband who is a non-active Marine who served in Viet Nam inspired this one. Love the military swallow tail and the emblem so classy! This one is for sale on my Etsy store GillyWear

Army pad, special order. Love the look of the tail on these pads.

This is Gilly's fun pad! I found this fabric and just had to have it, color is so different and love the wild running pony's on it. Trimmed this one out in a sparkly purple fabric. I haven't used it yet but in two weeks me and Gil are going to a clinic with Karen Musson so Gil will get to wear some new "clothes".
Hope I can get back in the groove of writing and posting. Got lots of pictures and will be going back and forth with posts.
Hope everyone had a good Easter....we did!!!
Jane and the boys

Two more new pads and a sale

I am having a one day sale on my Facebook page, Gilly Wear  (click to go) one day only tomorrow Dec. 14th $5.00 off all pads but you have to buy it from the facebook shopping cart, not my Gilly Wear web site.

 Here are a couple of new pads I just added. Love this fabric, Star Spangles Strips dressage pad, did some fun quilting on this one and I really like the colors here too....more purple!

This one I had so much fun doing, free motion machine quilting. This one is an all purpose pad, the fabric was called Terra, I call the pad Terra Firma but it kind of looks like fried eggs on drugs! LOL  I do love the colors and the shape, I may have to buy Gilly an all purpose saddle pad if this style doesn't sell so I can use them myself. heehee

Jane

More saddle pads....

 This is the latest saddle pad I finished the other day. (All purpose, spine 21" drop 17".) It was spoken for but so far the person who wanted is hasn't contacted me. It could be for sale if  I am not contacted soon. I love this fabric, so bright...usually I never go for fabric like this but wow! This fabric is also discontinued, so sad the designer died a few years ago and the company has decided to discontinue her fabric line.

 This dressage pad has a military look to it, (spine 22" drop 21") smokey blue and black stars. I thought about doing flap piping of red but at the last minute used this gold fabric. I like it!

 Now this one is a wenglish one for sure! Western looking dressage pad (spine 24 1/2" drop 23") I have added some buttons and beading to the end of the swallow tail. This one doesn't have the strapping to hook to the billets, I don't very often use them; thought I would leave it off unless requested to put them on.

 For the under pad I used cotton plaid flannel, nice and soft next to the horse.

 Close up of the beading and button. I also did a machine blanket stitch into the black binding, makes it look more western.

This is Gilly's wool pad I made him awhile back. I added some wool stars and hand stitched (blanket stitch) the purple stars on. I may add some bead work to it also. He needs a little bling on his stuff too!

It has been rainy here for days and days. Gilly loves the mud so no riding, I think he coats himself with mud on purpose just so he doesn't have to do any work. Clever horse isn't he? Weather is turning colder too, need to get some warmer riding pants so I can stand to be out for hours on end. Do they make those snuggy thingys for equestrians??? And just how would that work? Hum???
Jane

New Web Site

My web site is open, Gilly Wear is now up and running! Yea! My business card, that I have working on for some time. I am liking purple a lot this year so there is a lot of purple on it!

I don't know if you would call this pad a Christmas one or now but I liked the fabric, looks like holly leaves and berries to me. Winter, this would look good on a white or grey horse.                                                         

 This pad, Cream and Claret, I just finished on Friday, I am really liking it a lot! Got the fabric I got from a shop beside my husbands office. Decorating Connections is a fabric what does window treatments and such, I stopped in to have a look. The pad is made of some of the fabric, drapery, that I found there. Poly batting is sandwiched between it and white wool on the back.

 Back of the pad showing the free motion machine quilting. That is so much fun to do, makes the design on he front just POP!

Close up of the claret fabric. This fabric has a black thread running through it so when it moves it changes colors, these pictures don't do the fabric justice at all. There is a small strip of a gold/green separating the claret and the cream fabrics.

More to come, I'm just gettin' started!
Jane

Gilly's wool saddle pad

 I made Gilly a wool saddle pad with wool I used to hook rugs. Since I am not hooking now I thought I would put it to good use. Wool is a natural fiber and so good at wicking water away and cooling, I thought why not?

I used three layers of wool on each side of the pad and the yellow line is where I put a another layer of wool for more support where the saddle will sit. This design was used from my ThinLine pad. Pad feels all soft and cushy and I used it on Gilly for the first time this afternoon. (same pad color looks darker in house)

I almost forgot to take the picture of the pad on Gilly after my ride. I had removed the girth and was about to remove the saddle when I remember, take a picture!
I have ordered a sheepskin rug so I can make Gilly a fleece girth cover, I didn't like the ones I found on line so I thought I would make one myself....yea, I'm like that.
I haven't been able to ride for about a week, going to chiropractor but am on the mend so I rode today, between rain showers. Gilly was good, we had fun. Tomorrow is supposed to be nice, no rain! So I want to get another ride in and then hit the sewing room and get busy on some more saddle pads.

The Fabric

Here is the fabric I bought yesterday at The Quilted Work  click on the link to see the beautiful shop and the gardens full of gorgeous day lilies....lots to see, check it out. The shop is only 10 miles from home and it's close to the stable where I take Gilly sometimes to ride in the indoor arena. I am also going to work there one or two days a week, fun!

Oh, boy! The fabric above is one of my favorites for sure! This will be good for western or English, pretty! Some of the fabrics I bought as yardage for a full pad and some 1/2 yard cuts for corner trims and such, it will speak to me with time to start sewing it.

 This beautiful indigo blue with snowflakes is pretty neat too, it's also a favorite.

 Not sure what I will do with this one but it caught my eye so......I had to buy it.

Two of these have strips that can be cut and used as decorative pieces, the black with the copper and silver outlined leaves is interesting and the copper metallic is another neat one.

Love the turquoise and black one is interesting, that one looks western wear type to me but I don't know yet.

Ahh, horses running in the snow this one may end up as a band on the front of a hoodie sweatshirt. Yes, I know we will be having that snowy look all too soon! Ugh!

WOW!!! Flames, I see this one on a black background and I have an idea that in-tales some decorative glitzy metallic thread, yes, I do machine embroidery too. So many ideas my head is going to burst! Maybe if I make a pad like this for Gil it will light a fire under him to move faster, think? I don't! LOL
I started another pad this evening, will finish it tomorrow and start another one.

I have lots and lots of fabric from when I quilted years ago but one can never have too much fabric! ;-)
Jane

Gilly Wear

Me and Gilly are starting a new adventure, well, he is just the model I am doing all the work and he has his name on it! "Gilly Wear" Gilly's line of designer one of a kind saddle pads. This all started over taking off the rubber ThinLine pad off a saddle pad I had so I could dry it. You can wash the pad but not dry it in the dry because of the rubber pad sewn onto it....... sooo....I took it off! Being a seamstress I thought I can fix this; made a pocket for the rubber pad to fit in and I could remove it to wash and dry the pad.

After I removed the rubber pad, you can see the outline of it still on the cotton pad.

Pocket added and rubber pad is inside, I left an opening in the top center of the pocket so I can remove the rubber pad for washing and drying. I used the green fabric just cause it was handy, should have used black but it wasn't on hand.

Here is a picture of the black rubber pad laying on top of the dressage pad so you can see what it looks like and how it fits inside the pocket. After doing this I thought, hey, I can make saddle pads with designer pads and do the same thing, the pocket and still use the thin line pads and Gilly can have a wardrobe of clothes to wear!

So "Gilly Wear" was formed and I started collecting fabric.....which isn't hard for me because I used to be a quilter.  A quilter on break, I took 10 years off to do rug hooking and now I am quilting again, this time saddle pads!

                       

Here is Gilly modeling, this is all he does, a pad that I had put pockets on for the ThinLine pads, which I later changed, more on that later(see PS at bottom). I got this fabric at the local fabric store, love the red Chinese symbols on the black background. I made the pattern from my fitted dressage pad, above, but added a square back to it. So it fits my 18" seat saddle really well, this I call the small pad.

Here is a close up shot of the pad. Machine quilted in a 2" grid pattern. I made the black bias binding and the red bias trim too.

This pad I bought because I wanted a larger pad, it's only longer across the back than the one above but I added some really gorgeous fabric that I bought from a quilt shop, more expensive than the local JoAnn store but wow, pretty!

Close up of this one, I am not usually attracted to bright colors like this but, hey, it had horses on it so I had to get it and there was a matching horse fabric also. Of course I got it too.

Even closer! I did free motion machine quilting on it, around each horse head. Oh, I do love it!!! I only got half a yard so there isn't enough to make a full pad.......sigh.....may have to go get some more of this and this is really bad......this quilt shop is only a few miles from home! Where do you think I will be hanging out with the delivery truck comes with more fabric???? (I saw one of the gals that works there at a quilt meeting the other night and she says, "Hey Jane...we got some new horse fabric in!") Oh, boy, they got my number! LOL

Here is another pad I made, Gilly doesn't get to model the ones I plan on selling but this one is the same size as the black and red one. The patch at the bottom is the matching fabric that goes with the one above. There are either two or three more designs in the fabric for more interesting designs too. The purple fabric was from the JoAnn store but it sure matches the purple in the quilt fabric! The batting I used in this one is a high loft so it's puffier than the first one, the low loft is much easier to quilt.

I was going to make some bell necklaces for hoses too but then decided that the long necklace is a lot of work and a bit pricey since I use glass beads and semi precious stones so I decided to make a smaller string of bells and beads. I don't have one ready to show just yet but will have soon. I am also working on a little web site for the "Gilly Wear" pads and bells that are called "trail riding Liberty Bells". The name of our farm is Liberty Homestead Farm and we live in Liberty Township so....guess where I got the name? Also my hooks rug business is called "Liberty Homestead Rugs"

I do have a business card made up, what do you think? It took me awhile to decide on the colors but I find that this year I am loving purple! I seem to be drawn to a lot of purples everywhere I look, is that a popular color this year?

My neighbor, Kim, rides western and wants me to make her a western pad so yesterday we found some really neat fabric and ordered it. When I have it finished I will post it so you all can see it, I guess Messina will have to model the western pads and I'll have to call it "Messina Wear West"......LOL

The catchy phrase I came up with for "Gilly Wear" is this:  "It's What Your Horse Wants to Wear"

OK so this is the "END" of this post........

I am off to the sewing room to get busy on some more saddle pads!!! This is a good rainy, dreary day here in Ohio and these are the days I love to be in my sewing room creating!!!

Later,

Jane

PS~I have decided that I don't need to make pockets for each saddle pad for Gilly. I just made a small thin pad with pockets, still has to be open for extra shims, to lay over the pad and under the saddle. Problem solved!