It's Adorable

Cowpoke Lukie and Pony Pal Mila spent Saturday morning with Craig and me. As usual, they asked to come upstairs into my office and look at my collection, something I enjoy as much as they do.

Lukie wanted to see his favorite horse, Breyer's Autism Awareness Horse, and I smiled when he told me that it was "adorable." (A phrase his mama uses frequently to describe things.)

Notice that missing front tooth? He fell last week and knocked it out. Thankfully, the dentist says he thinks that Lukie's permanent tooth will be okay.

Lukie also likes Pony Pal Mila's favorite model, Under the Sea. He refers to that one as the "Water Horse," and deems it to be "adorable" as well.

Whether or not Cowpoke Lukie has the horsey gene remains to be seen. Regardless, he and I are making horsey memories together and that makes us both very, very happy.

You might even say, that's adorable.

Necklaces that will Last

For years I have bought and discarded several horseshoe necklaces. All were inexpensive and the "diamonds" in the horseshoes either fell out or discolored in their settings. 

Recently I was taking off my horseshoe necklace and noticed that another "jewel" had fallen out bringing the loss for that necklace to three stones. I was so frustrated! Tired of buying necklace after necklace, I decided that I would contact my friend Joleen who owns a jewelry store in another part of the state and see if she could help me find something durable.

Joleen spent time with me finding out what I was looking for and what I liked. She sent me some links to things that she had in stock as well as necklaces that could be ordered. I had no idea how many options there were!

Joleen also insisted on giving me deep discounts, and so I was able to afford one in sterling silver with cubic zirconia,

and (my favorite of the two) a gold one with diamonds. 

I took these photos of myself wearing them so she could see how pleased I am with them. I wear one or the other every day and they are comfortable, durable, and just what I had always wanted.

I should have made that call to Joleen a long time ago!

When Hobbies Combine

 I love it when hobbies combine. I love to read, so reading about horses makes me happy. 

I love to poke around antique and thrift shops (well, I did pre-pandemic!), 

so finding a vintage horsey book is a triple bonus in combining three things I love.

Combining my love of sewing with my love of horses has been a little harder. Making haversacks? Certainly. I have made over 260 of them since last May.

But it was getting my embroidery machine that really ratcheted my sewing of horsey items up. 

I have found so many horsey items to make using embroidery that I ended up putting them all onto their own USB disk instead of keeping them with my other digital patterns.

Embroidering goes way beyond putting names on things.

although that has allowed me to combine horses, sewing, and family time. (And is fun, too!)

It's enabled me to branch out into making other items for Horsiemama's Mercantile. 

Right now I am experimenting with kitchen towels. For any embroidery project, I always make a couple of practice designs on cheap fabric and then cut them out and save them with notes as to what worked, what didn't, and what I wanted to change.

Then I try the real deal and do any tweaking that needs to be done.

Most days I can be found spending time in my horse room surrounded by my collection and with one of these machines going.

I love it when hobbies dovetail so nicely.

HO Scale Haversacks

I am working on a scene set up of Little Lynn and Circus Girl sewing haversacks for their models as they prepare for a live show. I have a sewing machine, bolts of fabric, and other props, but I needed to have some finished items that they had sewn to add to the scene.

Because these are teeny tiny horses, the scale on the fabric needs to be small. Solid colored fabric would work, too.

Since I chose cotton fabrics and cotton will fray, I backed all my mini haversacks with some iron on interfacing. That will curb most of the fraying.

Then I laid one of the horses on the fabric and eyeballed the measurements, deliberately cutting it a bit large so that I had room to play with.

I ironed the top (the flap for closing) and the bottom (the top of the bag that the flap will fold over.)

Then I folded the fabric up until it met with the top plan fold and drew a chalk line down the center stopping at the fold line.

I stitched both sides of that chalk line, stopping at the fold. I had also stitched the side seams shut.

Laying my quilting ruler just to the left of the chalk line,

I used my rotary cutter to cut the two haversacks apart. I also used it very carefully to clean up the outer seams as well.

I repeated this process until I had made several HO scale haversacks.

Checking for fit - height was no problem, but the lying and galloping HO scale horses needed a bit more length.

They were fun to make, but I don't plan to make any more - I just needed a few props.

Plus, I like using fleece better - it doesn't fray so it doesn't need the interfacing and its seams look better as a result. I already make fleece mini haversacks for Mercantile customers as a thank you. I tuck one into each order with a charm, sticker, or something else inside as a surprise.

Barn Raising: Shadows from the Past

 Not only did I finish my NaMoPaiMo horse, I finished my barn raising project, too.

Like the NaMoPaiMo horse,

it isn't perfect.

I should've put something into these pictures so that the scale would show.

That tiny scale (1:144) made it really difficult for me to paint and assemble it.

But I have learned that challenging myself, hard as it may be, can also give you a very strong sense of satisfaction. (A lesson I learned from Can Do Gracie and her classmates.)

I can't wait to set this up with Little Lynn and Circus Girl and see how it looks with them. 

Shades of Can Do Gracie as well as the girls of Pawnee Stables.

I did it!

NaMoPaiMo: I Did It!

Yesterday I finished my NaMoPaiMo horse!

I now know three different ways to make the color black without using a single drop of black paint.

Since last year I did Sultanna, I decided that this year I would do Hokey, another of Abby's pasture mates. I went through a lot of photos trying to find clear ones of his white markings.

I didn't want to do a sunburnt Hokey, either. I wanted to do him in his winter-black coat.

This year's challenges were getting the hoof color right (the bottom of his hooves needed to dry so I propped him in the paints) and trying to give depth to his coat. That part was so much fun - I used a watered down midnight blue applied with a fan brush!

I could not get a good photo, but I think his most realistic feature is his right eye. I used four colors on it and despite struggling with the tiny eyeball size, tiny paint brush, poor eyesight (mine, not his), and stiff fingers, I am really happy with that eye. (The other, not as much.)

He is far from perfect, but I wasn't struggling for perfection. I wanted to learn more about painting and I wanted to paint with Pony Pal Mila. (Cowpoke Lukie was an unexpected bonus.)

I achieved those goals, and even better, I completed the challenge. 

I did it!

Pawnee Stables: There are Haversacks to be Made!

I finally took a few moments early one morning (as in 5:30 AM) to pull out my stack o'mini carriers 

and take a look at which railroad scale of horse worked better with my 1:9 scale dolls, Little Lynn and Circus Girl. 

The these-make-the-arthritis-in-my-hands-hurt HO scale,

or the über teeny tiny can-hardly-be-seen-with-or-without-my-glasses N scale?

Luckily for my eyes (but not so much for my fingers), the HO scale proved to be the best.

Now that that is settled, Little Lynn is hoping live showing will return sometime this year and needs some haversacks for her show models.

Circus Girl is still here in Indiana at the circus's wintering grounds and would like to sew a few for her collection, too. 

They discussed fabric options

and made up a schedule for taking turns with the sewing machine.

Circus Girl also would like to make a couple of haversacks for her doll riders and the smaller models in her collection.

Stay 'tooned to see the results of the ladies' sewing get together.

An Attempted Barn Trip

Yesterday the sun was shining and despite the heavy snow on the ground, the roads were dry and mostly clear. I decided to do a barn visit. I've been doing drive-bys (stopping on the road next to Abby's pasture to observe her and see if she is up, eating, moving freely, etc.) and I know Tim checks her daily, but I really, really wanted to see my horse.

There were a lot of icicles on our home

including this incredible one that reached to the ground. It fell and shattered right after I took the photo leaving a huge pile of ice on the ground.

The roads to the barn were fine; it was when I turned into the one lane gravel road the leads back to the new barn that I started to have concerns that I might not be able to make it all the way.

I stopped my car and snapped some photos, trying to gauge the depth of the tire tracks and to see if my little Ford Fusion could make it up the lane. And if I did make it up, how clear was it at the top of the rise? Would I get stuck up there?

I decided not to chance it and to do another drive by visit, so I turned around, went back out onto the road, and drove past the pasture that Abby, Trouble, and Hokey are in. They were munching at the hay rack and were fine.

The forecast is for temperatures in the 40s this coming week so we are going to have a big thaw. Of course, with as much snow as we have on the ground, that means flooding, but right now I will take it!

Fingers crossed that Abby and I will be reunited in a day or two.