A New Color!

My new website is being created as I write this.  I am so excited with the creative and different look it will have, and the new options I will have with this site, such as writing this blog!  My ability to add new items will be easier.  So, at this point I’d like to introduce you to a new color (Antique Tan) that I have been working on for at least 2 years now.  It has been a rocky road, but I feel I am ready to offer it now.

You will see that many of my saddles now will offer “Antique Tan” along with the regular black and brown colors.

I have named this color “Antique Tan” for a couple of reasons.  First, I do use a stain rather than a dye to create this color We often uses stains to obtain an “antique” look.  But that was not my original intention.  I just wanted to find a way to sustain that beautiful tan color that I see when I first treat the leather. But, ahhh, when I applied my usual process of working with a saddle with the tan color, I lost the color.  It usually came out darker, too dark.  You may or may not know this, but when I create a saddle , I wet the entire saddle just before I mold the saddle.  This has a tendency to darken the leather somewhat, but I also treat the leather with a leather conditioner and polisher (at the end) to preserve the leather, and make it look shiny.  This also took away from that beautiful color.

I will spare you the long details of how I got it to work, but I am very pleased that I have been able to save, at least, the majority of that brilliant color.  The second reason I chose “Antique Tan” as the name of this new color, is that it always seems to leave at least a mild “antique” look to the saddle.  Leather is a natural product that has idiosyncrasies built into its very nature.  The pigmentation of the leather picks up the stain. Thus, depending on the particular piece of leather I use, the color comes out a little different for each saddle I make.   So with that said, I can guarantee you than no two saddles will come out exactly the same. 

Thanks for reading.

Blessings,

Barbara