We frequently receive requests and orders for commissioned
saddles and accessories that are out of the ordinary, and of course we are only
too pleased to work with people who have a dream of creating their own unique items. This is why we were delighted to be contacted
in February this year by Ellie Walton who needed a little Bliss help with an
amazing challenge that she had set herself.
“I am a 3rd year textiles student of
Nottingham Trent University who specialises in screen printing. Furthermore,
when not doing uni work I am a keen horse rider and owner, which is where the
theme of my final year project has originated from.”
“Concept for final
project/degree show:
I am planning to
create a variety of screen printed patterns inspired by the use of horses
within our society and how they have been affected by urbanisation. I really
want to capture the strength and great power of the horse as well as their
elegance and grace through a mixture of repeat and placement patterns. The
journey through my collection will start very nostalgic and subtle, reflecting
my childhood with horses, and then it will progress into more dynamic and
dramatic motifs/patterns as horses merge into urban life and the structure of
buildings interact with the horses, reflecting their strength.”
“My initial idea is to
put a piece or hand printed leather or fabric back into a seat of an old saddle
I have, so I am placing my final prints back into my inspirational source. I
wanted my fabric to stand out and be displayed I an inventive way when I take
my work to degree shows in the summer.
I am at the beginning
of my project at the moment, so I am at the initial drawing stage. The deadline
for my project is the 22nd May and my degree shows are through June. I am also
very keen to exhibit my work at the new designers show in London. I am aware
that this is a small time frame and that your saddles are in high demand and
you are very busy, so i am willing to work around you and try a make a final
print as soon as possible for my deadlines to be met”.
How could we resist helping out from such a heart felt and
passionate plea?
These were some of the initial sketch ideas which were
produced on fabric, in order to test the colours, the clear areas of the fabric
were burnt out to create transparent image.
Initially Ellie wanted to use her own designs on a full
seat of an old Bliss saddle. However it
was decided that it would be best if Bliss did the printing as well as the re-seating. Ellie advised us “I
have spoken to my print technician and I think for a more professional finish I
feel I would like you to help me with the leather printing instead of printing
them myself as I think the pigment I would use would crack when stretched to
fit the” saddle” .
Printing onto leather is not new to us at Bliss and has
become quite popular recently as we have used various nations flags on the back
cantle pieces of our saddles, however using this technique over a full seat was
something very different and certainly needed testing.
With a May deadline to meet and designs to be finalised and
testing to be done, Ellie put pen to paper and set about producing some
fabulous designs, one of which was chosen and we converted to print as our
trial seat. Unfortunately it was soon obvious that the scale and complexity of
this initial design was not going to work on a saddle seat.
Armed with the knowledge that she had learned from version 1
Ellie got about redesigning a new seat design.
Our primary concern
had always been whether the image would stretch and distort when ‘blocked’ over
the seat so n order to test this thoroughly it required a new tree to be
strained, foamed and blocked using the initial print this gave Ellie 2 weeks to
put a new design together, but wow, it was worth it.
We were much happier with
the repeat in this design as it gave us more scope to centralise key aspects on
the seat when blocking. The skill involved in setting a seat is being able to
take a flat piece of leather and mould it over a complicated 3 dimensional
object in a way that the leather is stretched sufficiently enough to remove all
creases.
This is a task in itself but when presented with a
symmetrical design, avoiding unevenness was off the essence. We were thrilled with the final results and even managed to
match up the new leather on the skirts to the old original saddle leather.
Last week Ellie came in to collect her finished project and
we also got the chance to see some of her other incredible pieces of textiles,
wallpapers and scarves just some, for her show.
Ellie “I took my
saddle in today and people are amazed by it! I'm very proud!”
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