22/09/2026
Expressions of Interest: in a hands-on clinic learning to counterline horse collars> please message us here, or email [email protected]
Date and price - not set yet. It will depend on who would like to attend and when they can manage it. From time to time we get people asking us if we'd ever teach counterlining, so here will be the first chance!
Either bring your own collar, (preferably) or do one of ours - we have a couple that would benefit from it.
We have enough collar needles and collar palms, for about 6 or 7 at a time to be worked on.
Prerequisites:
1. Preferably some ability to hand sew leather beforehand, (called 'saddle stitching' these days ), though not totally necessary as it's not used unless you need to resew straps or buckles back on while you're at it.
2. A bit of muscle.
3. A fair bit of common sense.
4. We need to know if you have a collar of your own to be 'tidied up', (hopefully) , or not!
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Background: in 1980 I'd bought two very dilapidated collars at a clearing sale for not much money; almost give-away standard. ($10 maybe?)
I'd got hold of some collar check and a counter lining needle from Uhls' saddlery in Queen St, Brisbane city, and i set about 'doing it', while knowing precious little about the real process.
It took me ages, but it was serviceable, and I used those two collars on Bess and Wilson for several years and plenty of shows.
About 12 years later, Keith Houghton, a friend and collar maker offered to show me the proper way to counterline a collar. BIG difference!
Having the right tools, and also the right knowledge was the key, and was a much bigger key than I'd expected !
There is a knack to using a collar palm and a collar needle to sew the lining to the rim without hurting yourself or making too many holes in places they're not needed, but once you get the technique right, it goes fairly smoothly.
And the counterlining needles I'd done my original job with, are actually not used at all!
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The last two photos pictured here are for interests' sake: we recently bought a 2nd-hand round-throated 26" North American collar which had spent a long time hanging from a peg and had lost much of its original horse-neck shape, becoming quite long and very narrow.
So we set about reshaping it back to a degree of normality and functionality to fit our clydies! Here it is, drying, sitting in our collar press, regaining some of its former size, shape and usefulness!
(The rope, we use to help maintain a groove for the hames to be seated in when in use.)
