My traditional scale saddles

Here you can find my saddles.

Page updated:
- 11/3/20: Page published.

I will tell some backstory for my saddlemaking to go along with the photos. I mention only the biggest steps what I had during improvement, and will write more as I develop my saddlemaking further.


2013-2016 were years when I didn't do much tack at all, let alone saddles. I just did a random halter or bridle here and there, but I was still new to tack. I had no idea how a saddle was built, so I didn't even try. It's hard to start something if you have no any idea what to do first, including choosing the info you need to read. My first serious attempt at a 1:9 scale saddle was in 2014, when I tried to invent something simple to help my dolls to ride... The result was so creepy, I never published it when it was new.

Yes, this is a saddle... In some imagination...

Staples! I used staples for tackmaking back then. I even made some buckles from them.

Another try came in 2016, I believe, although the photos are from 2017. But I don't feel like it was only at 2017, it had to be before. This thing had two separate flap pieces, which were connected afterwards... somehow, with the removable girth that came off completely. This saddle had no cantle, but it had rings for a breastplate and maybe even a ring in behind so I was able to attach a crupper there as well.

Then came 2017, which was the year when I became a crazy bridlemaker. That is what I remember it for. But it was also another year to think some simple saddle attempts to help my dolls ride. Now I also had a good reason for this, since I had several homemade dolls! It was interesting to find out how each of them rode.

In the late 2017, autumn, I decided to try if I can build a simple saddle to use for photography. I cut a symmetric-as-possible piece of hide, made two slots to each of it's flaps - one near the seat and one near the lower edge - and put a long leather strap through that. I didn't have any kind of templates and held the hide twofolded while I cut it, so that explains why it doesn't look like a typical English saddle. When I put it on a horse, I tried to figure out how to continue since I needed to make something to support the dolls' butts so that they can keep the upright position and not fall on their backs (or drop completely off). This despite the fact that my dolls have tails with wire inside them.

I realised the girth going over the seat was a key. I was able to make a narrow, well layered loop, which was glued from it's ends. The loop itself faced to the tail, and I decided to fill it a bit with something removable (twofolded hide). Then when that looked a bit rough, I folded a wider piece of hide on it and under the girth. My first actually useable saddle, Vanhalärpykkä, was born. 

As I now had an idea how to make some primitive saddles, which yet worked okay and held my dolls securely on horseback, I of course started to make more of them. Needless to say that the next sample isn't as nice as the first. This time the seat got permanently glued on the seat piece. The saddle overall is way too large and boring to use that often, but well, I have some dolls who love it, although I don't... Called it Kuutiolärpykkä due to it's squareness.

Second 'serious' saddle or riding pad I've made. This is too large and stupidly shaped for every horse, but at least it could protect the rider from every drop of sweat a horse produces... Heh. Also a very rough saddleseat feeling this gives. 

I'm not sure if I made more saddles that year, but 2018 was one "successful" saddle year, and tack year overall. I made a lot of stuff, but this doesn't mean the stuff was good. I just made many new saddles now when I had at least some kind of technique for it. When I look at them now (early 2020), I think they look creepy and ridiculous. That is what they are. Only the Vanhalärpykkä is not like that, it's actually fine when compared to all these. I haven't documented much of any processes, creating dates or anything, so I can't say for sure which one was made and when, so I just show some photos.

Bright dressage 'saddle'. I have no words to describe this ugliness, partly because of it's seat. It got changed to a better (but still ugly) one later.

Jumping saddle? At least in shape... Still lacks the knee pads and so on.

The girth goes through the saddle and on the seat, so it's not on the spine, but I guess it's not the most comfortable thing to feel for the rider.

All-purpose saddle with a ridiculously short seat (or at least the soft part is too short, it should go entirely from the pommel to the cantle).

A small "mosteasy" saddle, which is based on my drawings about some fictional breed and riding style. It's not meant to make any sense for anyone. This certain saddle had 'some' technical issues in it's making, as you can tell from the seat shape. This also was my first saddle with stirrups. (Both stirrup leathers and the overgirth got ripped apart during 2019 due to their poor leather; not to even mention how that girth was way too narrow.)

It was the summer 2018, when I bought some nice leather in various colors. I used those mostly for dolls, but also for saddles. It can remain as a mystery if I did any of the colorful saddles during that year or only the next.

In the late 2019 I started to pay attention to the saddles' undersides, which meant it was time to do paddings and panels to them. I wasn't new to panels as a thing, but I thought that was a little too much of work for a risky new step. (Yes, I think I'm afraid of everything new...) I still hadn't figured out how to make the stirrup attachments in some practical way, so they weren't in the plans and I continued to use the overgirths only. Spreading a rider's weight is more important than stirrups, anyway.

A big blue dressage saddle. Probably 2018 or 2019, got panels in 2019. No stirrups or proper girth option.

This 2019 small all-purpose saddle isn't worth seeing, but there are panels in it. And they work. No stirrups or proper girth option.

From some of these colorful "candy" saddles one can see that the seats became a bit better than what they were at the 2018. I still made them roughly, by gluing some wide-ish leather strip on the midway of the saddle. Often I shaped the pommel area permanently by layering leather systematically, while the cantles had removable filling. Sometimes I also shaped the pommels with scissors, but didn't do that much due to how easy it was to ruin the symmetry. 

A smallish pink dressage saddle for smaller or average size riders. No stirrups or proper girth options. 2019. This one worked well for one of my dressage riders, so I had to make him a personal saddle from a more natural color...

A pink all-purpose saddle. No stirrups or proper girth option. 2019.

A brown all-purpose saddle, again without stirrups or proper girth option. 

September 2019. My saddles were still messy and boring, so I got enough and read some info about saddle structure and it's parts. I tried to figure out which parts are the most necessary and why, and how should I simplify those so that I would understand their function well enough. I wanted my saddles to have stirrups, and I also had to get rid of the overgirths which often weren't very practical. I made one test saddle from blue leather - the seat was still made by piling strips of leather and glued on place. 

The "first proper saddle", 2019, an all-purpose one which I tried to build correctly what comes to realistic English saddles. Not so good job really; it has too much piling in it, which isn't really good if you want to get closer to your horse. This is the reason why I switched to develop my monoflap type saddles further. This is also first saddle I made to have both stirrup rings and proper girth (though I made only single girth straps there because this was a test piece).

After the blue saddle, I found out there were so-called monoflap saddles, which were much simplier in their construction than the average English saddles. I decided to start making those, since that way I didn't need to redesign my templates or make more parts into them. Overall monoflaps were much easier to understand compared to the average English saddle's construction.

At this point I drew panel templates for most (all?) of my saddles I had drawn at the time, and decided to add panels to all/most of the colorful saddles I had done earlier. Some saddles got a bit too flat paneling, which was like there were no any panels at all... And they were always quite rough, just pieces cut into shape and glued in place.

Once I also bought some new leather pieces (leftovers from the shop, I guess), which I was curious to test for everything; if I would thin them, I would make bridle lace, but if not, I would just use them for saddles. Earthy colors were well welcomed after those ugly colors I had used a lot before that, and black I just can't find. Turned out that I can't thin these leathers, so my next projects were two saddles. One was an all-purpose and one dressage saddle. I decided that they had to include the stirrup option and proper girthing. And unlike with the excessively layered blue saddle, these instantly got not one but two billets per flap.

An all-purpose monoflap saddle from September 2019. Made from thick, fuzzy brown leather, which has it's problems, but at least the saddle had stayed in one piece to this day. Here you see it's underside, obviously. This one has stirrup rings and two girth straps in each flap. (The ballpoint pen lines there were meant to take care of the symmetry when gluing the saddle paddings.)

The dressage saddle was made with a template that worked well for one doll, Sulo, so he got it to keep as his own.

A small brown dressage saddle from thick, fuzzy leather, September 2019. Stirrups and proper girth are a thing with this. I made this saddle specifically for my doll Sulo, who is one of my best riders. He deserved a seat of his own. (I loathe the knee pads there, argh. And the seat as well, though it can be replaced.)

I think after the saddle for Sulo, I decided to test if I can sand leather. I knew people do this, but was still surprised how well the sandpaper bit to leather. Panels became much less "sharp" thanks to that.

The next three saddles were made as a group, and I did some padding testing with each. One got the panels similarly as I had done before, so no sanding and the panels got glued in place after everything else. The two others got their panel pieces sanded and glued against the flap piece, to see if I was able to make the paneling smoother that way (so that they would better adapt to the horse's shape). One's paddings are glued flesh side against the flap piece and with the other the glue got on the paddings' top side. Sometimes it matters.

The reason why these three got natural colored billets was the fact that I simply had no brown to use that time. I also made a few new girths to go with them. 

Three saddles with similar design and small differences. One of them has silver toned metal parts and one of those with gold has brown lace glued as girth straps, while the others have girth strapos made from creamy colored leather. Early November 2019.

After finishing these three I also found a serious problem: the paddings were so thick that they weren't able to adapt to the shape of the horse's back. I had glued them on just by keeping everything on the table, not paying attention to the fact that they can become too stiff later. These saddles weren't entirely hopeless, but doesn't that sound just uncomfortable for the horse?

One from the pile of three, with brown girth straps. After these I probably didn't do more saddles with seats which were made the way I did them on these.

Then in November 2019, I decided to test if I can make a saddle which has an actual shaped seat, instead of just a lot of leather piled together. For a short time I thought I can lift the cantles up and form the seat's shape only by stacking leather pieces as "stairs" under the cantle. Later I figured out that I really had to literally glue pieces together and hold them into shape while the glue sets. It solved some problems.

Here it is... My first saddle with both proper panels/padding on the underside and also a seat that has a shape and no removable filling. The seat piece is definitely the hardest part to make on saddles! November 2019.

The underside of that same saddle.

A small saddle for kid dolls. I don't have many pony models so that is why it has to have long girth straps... The seat and knee rolls are glued upside down and also got sanded a bit. November 2019.

Another all-purpose saddle in creamy colored leather. I have learned that it's knee rolls should curve a bit lower; now the flaps seem to be too short for most of my average sized dolls. November 2019.

Another creamy saddle, now with seat and knee rolls made from thick fuzzy brown leather that I glued upside down. November 2019. 

2020 started in February, when I 'remade' one template; I had to reshape the flaps to make them a bit longer and place the knee rolls lower. After a bit of sketching and cutting I had a whole new template - A/2/20 - in my hands! And let me say, for now it's one of my best templates - at first I thought it was too large for my horses, but eventually found out that it actually fits just okay (especially the bigger warmbloods). I started to redesign some old templates as well, to give them some hope despite being so old.

February Alphabet, the first saddle of the year 2020, template A/2/20. The leather I used for him seems to be really nice in all ways; in softness, thickness, it's well sandable and glueable. Only the billets are something else, which made them a bit annoying to use, but that's not a serious problem since I can always change them to something nicer if I want to.

February Alphabet's Twin, similar to him but has the seat and knee rolls glued topside up. The billets are some thinned leather lace (width 3 mm).

February Alphabet's Twin's underside.

Pikkura, a smaller saddle made with same leather as the previous two.

Sirkuskura/Iikkonen, template i/2/20 (which also gave him his name). Very similar in size with February Alphabet, but is a bit thinner or something. His seat template was way too long so I made it smaller after the saddle was done (and I did cut the leather version as well - it was surprisingly easy).

Sulo's saddle II. I wanted to see if I can do it better now, and well, I probably like the seat. I fixed the old template to an 2020 version and especially tried to make it to fit a horse who's back drops very deep right behind the withers. Not so sure if it worked, but you can't really see it... (I stole the stirrups from the old saddle.)

Also Mr. Professor got his personal saddle, which of course has to be large! I used an old template which I probably need to fix a bit more at some point, since I had some problems during the construction of this saddle.

I still don't make skirts to my saddles, because they're not crucial in the sense of saddle function; they're rather just protecting the rider from some stirrup leather buckles, I guess.

For now, I think it's safe to tell some common rules I have in my saddlemaking. Paddings, seats and panels I make by layering leather, and usually everything gets three layers of leather in them. If I use super thick (and stiff) leather, a third layer isn't probably needed. Panel pieces, which I glue to go with paddings, can also have just two layers in them. Paddings, seat and panels get sanded at some areas, which helps them both "blend" to each other and surrounding shapes when gluing and also stay better in place. From seats I sand the cantle from it's underside, and at the pommel I sand the branches from their topside to make them flatter and so easier to drape among the saddle without ripping apart (the glue...).

I learned about these layerings by making Salaattisatula (salad saddle), who has two layers in paddings due to the brown being thick enough. The green leather in it would have been way too soft and thin to make seats or paddings that would keep their shape well enough, so I used the brown.

Salaattisatula. Because he's so green.

Blingipolvi (bling knee), template E/2/20. I can't imagine any actual reasons to use that bling leather in the seat and knee rolls; the material has no function in helping the rider to stay on... But it would be nice if it wears out a lot over time.

"Toffee cream saddle II", a better one to follow the first example of these colors and leather types.

One little thing about paddings. For some time I had thought if I would make it easier for the paddings to take their shape before gluing to the saddle. Some leathers don't like it when you bend them much after they've been glued into layers, which means that the shaping is best to do before all the layers have dried. I tried that trick with one brown dressage saddle, and can say it worked.

First layers of paddings glued on the other layer and waiting that I cut them out. There are also two seat layers waiting to be cut.

Dark brown dressage saddle. I still don't know if it's okay to sand edges from the knee rolls, but it makes them look a bit more interesting compared to those which I don't sand.

At 29/2/20, a day which doesn't come every year, I wanted to do something which remains in history of my tackmaking. I did a black saddle with a template i/2/20. This is my first black saddle which works properly and all. I called it Mustikko, as a combination of the color (musta, alias black) and the template, which is same as with Iikkonen. This is a very welcomed saddle, what comes to my photography... Finally I can have a saddle which can go together with the several black bridles I have. It feels good to be able to photograph not only the horse's head and bridle but also the saddle now. At least that is what I hope.

The next saddles happened only after the February was already gone.

Mustapölypolvi, the first saddle of March 2020. Template i/2/20. The black parts were made from the same material as what I used for Vanhalärpykkä and related oldies (and as you can see, that hide is good at collecting all the dust and trash that flies around).

Sinipörrökerma, a small dressage saddle and also the first sample of it's template. I found out I probably shouldn't make much more of these D/2/20 -saddles for now, since they're so small and most likely can't fit anyone well (and I have to lenghten the panels or shorten the cantle...).

The seat and knee rolls got covered with some fluffy fabric, which made the seat feel so soft that I would like to pet it endlessly, hah.

At one point I was developing a finger injury due to all that sanding and overall crafting, and decided to let my hands rest for a while. I still had a huge desire to do something, and I had saddles to make, so I made the parts for several ones at once to have them ready when I can sand them later. 

Little dark red saddle with black seat and knee rolls (and creamy paddings and panels...), template H/2/20. I used some failed billets for this one, just to avoid wasting material.

Maur's student saddle; it's his but he can't use it  for himself (he's too big for this saddle). Template A/2/20. The dark red parts were recycled from some pieces which I previously used as "punching base" due to that particular leather being so poor quality for halters and bridles.

More to come!