Scythian Saddle Pad Reproduction

Scythian Felt Saddle Pad Reproduction

5^th century B.C.E.

Eastern Altai Mountains, Pazyryk Burial Mound 1

I was recently commissioned to recreate this famous saddle pad.  My patron

Original 500BC saddle pad

requested that I leave the “dangly bits” off.  To date I had not attempted felt ornamentation to this level so I was both excited and nervous to accept the commission.

pre-felt is cut and laid onto base before felting begins

Pre-felts are cut and positioned on the base wool before felting begins.

Technique:

This piece is completely wet felted (no needle felting or sewing.) I have chosen to use the pre-felt method to achieve the design while the original seems to be either appliquéd or pre-felted then embroidered.  However these last two methods would add a significant amount of time to the project and make is cost prohibitive for my patron.  My piece has about 20 hours in it, which would at least double if embroidery were added.  And the pre-felt technique alone was also used in this period.    The pre-felt technique involves lightly felting a thin layer of each color in the design then cutting them out before laying them into the body of the felt piece as it is being felted.  This helps to create a crisp edge and minimized distortion in the design as it is felted.

Copying the design

Bringing the design from a small photograph to a scale reproduction involved some basic math and a copy machine.  Using the finished measurements given and a guesstimation of the percent of shrinkage the wool would have, I tested a small segment of the design with the wool I was intending to use.  After that I used the copy machine to enlarge the design.  I cut on the “inside of the lines” when cutting the design out.  That is I cut a tiny sliver off the perimeter of each piece to allow for a small bit of “spread” as the design is wetted down and to hopefully leave a small bit of the background showing through to enhance definition, since I would not be embroidering the lines on. 

Materials

I have chosen to use a wool batting, whose fiber content is described as merino, mohair and “Russian wool”.   This probably was not the kind of wool used in the Scythian find; however I needed a wool that could be purchased in the right color palate.   (Dying my own wool with period dyes is something I am just beginning to experiment with.)  I have used this wool blend extensively and find it to be an excellent all purpose felting wool.  Since the Pazyryk site is in present day Russia, it is entirely possible that the mysterious “Russian wool” is somehow related to the Scythian wool.

Conclusions

I am very pleased with the level of definition and accuracy I achieved using the pre-felt technique to reproduce a period motif.  It is one thing to create my own design and have a bit of distortion result, but a reproduction must look like the original.  I believe the pre-felt technique will allow me to make a wide variety of designs including heraldic devices in felt.