The December Sewing Room

Second Post of the Day

My sewing room in December looks very different than it does the other months of the year. As soon as Thanksgiving is over, the 18th century patterns are tucked away, out comes the embroidery machine, and I begin making Christmas gifts.

 This is a difficult pattern, but one of my favorites. 

Here is a sample piece from when I was learning to make it and experimenting with colors.

Doesn't it look a lot like Hagen Renaker's mini Clydesdale Stallion? (Photo from Google Images - I can't find the pics of my own!)

With 40,000 stitches and 22 color changes, the Clydesdale pattern is labor intensive.

I've been asked if I would sell these aprons, but the rule of thumb for selling your embroidery is to charge $1 per 1,000 stitches, and I'm not sure people would pay that much. So, I just make this design for gifts.

And, for me! Although my visiting family has been known to borrow it. Haha!

Another thing I'm embroidering this Christmas are these bell ornaments. Bells are one of my favorite holiday symbols.

This embroidery technique is called free standing lace. Those heavy outlines are very, very closely spaced stitches and as a result, the stitch count is high for these, too. (20,000 each.) But, there are no color changes so they are easier to make than the Clydesdale.

I make them two at a time and have sixteen made thus far. I'll free them from their backing, press them, and then add ribbon hangers. 

When you know you are going to do a large project with a color, you don't buy a spool of thread, you buy a large cone of it. There are 5,000 meters (5,468 yards) of thread on that new cone. That's three miles of embroidery thread!

Today's project is to start work on a Christmas tea towel for Belle using the Clydesdale pattern. In between color changes, I will press the lace ornaments and add their ribbons.

I may run some errands, too. We have another winter storm coming in tonight and then again on Saturday. Temps are in the 40s so things have melted enough for me to be able to get outside and use my walker without too much trouble.

Busy day ahead! 

Baltazar & the Christmas Clydesdales

I am pushover for Breyer's clearware. There is something about it that I find appealing, and so when Breyer puts out a clearwater model, I seriously consider adding it to my collection regardless of the scale of the piece. 

Breyer's 2021 winter decorator Baltazar is classic-sized, a scale I only sporadically collect, but he's now in my collection.

His coloring reminds me of a blend of two of this year's Clydesdale Christmas pieces

with the blue on the top half

and the candy apple red on the bottom.

Don't they look lovely together? I'm going to set these three out on a table in the overlook family room as more holiday decor!

Christmas Card of the Day

Breyer's November Stablemate Surprises & a Recipe

Yesterday Breyer dropped a notice that their fourth annual November Stablemate gambler's choice/blind bags would be available today at 2:00 PM EST to Collectors Club members.

This year's offering is the mini Clydesdale (squee!!) in four colors. (I want that blue! And the red! Although the gold and silver are nice, too!) Like last year, the 2021 web specials are in blind bags.

Last year Breyer offered Festive Filigrees. I really wanted the Darwin (the Lippizaner) and actually ended up with all four. (All photos from Breyer.)

The 2019 assortment was Starry Skies, a gambler's choice of four unicorns with stars. Unicorns are not my cuppa hot chocolate so I did not order any.

The very first Stablemate holiday web special came in 2018, the Fruitcake Fillies. (I love that name!) They were cute, but like the 2019 Starry Skies, I did not like these enough to order any of them.

This year it's a favorite vintage mold that's been shrunk down to Stablemate size - I'm going to be happy no matter which colors I get!

Today's recipe is a legacy from my mother. I don't know where she got it, but it's another holiday staple since my childhood. This candy hardens quickly so move fast after you've added the nuts and vanilla.

Spiced Nuts

Mix 1 cup sugar, 1/2 teaspoon cinnamon, 1/4 cup evaporated milk, and 2 tablespoons of water in a saucepan. Bring to a boil and stir constantly until it reaches soft ball stage. 

Quickly stir in 1/2 cup pecans and 1/2 teaspoon vanilla. Drop by spoonfuls onto waxed paper and let cool. (Parchment might work - I've never tried it, though.) 

If you or your family are like me and mine, spiced nuts won't last long around your house so I double the recipe.

Holiday Horses & a Recipe

Horsiemama's Mercantile is closed for this month so that I can stitch up holiday gifts for my family. Here is a peek at two horsey designs I've been working on.

Before I embroider a design, I always make a test piece. I want to get a feel of how the design comes together, and even more importantly, how the colors work with each other. This takes a little time, but is always worth it in the end. 

 

Isn't this Clydesdale design neat? I didn't like the mailbag's side in the taupe that was called for, so I changed it and stitched it to a lighter color.

I also took the green "stamp" off the top right letter, and used the same color of green for the bell strap that was in the mane ribbons. (They were two very close but different shades of green. I preferred the brighter shade.) 

The final product on an apron. I still need to add the text. (And iron the apron - that fold line functions as a marker to help me center the pattern.)

Does that design remind anyone else of the Hagen Renaker miniature Clydesdale like it does me?

I flipped the photo horizontally so the horses were facing the same way. (Photo from Google Images.)

That design was a success; then there's this one which is still in need of tweaking.

The sled is gorgeous, but the horse is in need of work. I even went back to the design directions and stitched it out a second time to check and be sure I was using the recommended colors. I was, and the design really does call for pine-green shading on the horse. That's got to be changed!

I hope to wrap up the project for the grands who will be here on Thanksgiving in a day or two. When I do, I will share that with you later this week. Stay 'tooned!

Today's recipe is an Isenbarger family staple for the holidays. And not only does it taste good, it is EASY. (No candy thermometer or "beat until glossy" needed.) Originally from the back of a Kraft Marshmallow Creme jar, I've been making this fudge since the 1990s.

Easy Chocolate Fudge

Put 3/4 cup butter or margarine, 3 cups sugar, and 2/3 cups milk* in a saucepan and bring to a boil, stirring constantly.  Reduce heat to medium. Keep stirring and let boil 5 minutes. Remove from heat.

Gradually stir in one package of chocolate chips and stir until melted. Add one 7 oz jar of marshmallow creme and a teaspoon of vanilla. (1 cup of chopped nuts, too, if desired.) Mix well.

Pour into greased 13x9 pan and cool.

Important Note: Be sure to lick the spoon and spatula before washing them to get every bit of fudgy goodness!

* Original recipe calls for evaporated milk. Regular milk works just fine.

More New Models

Between Happy Trails, Great Lakes Congress, and some surfing on Breyer's web site, I've added more than a few ponies to the herd! Besides the blingy pieces, I've gotten some realistically painted ones, too.

This dapple grey Clydesdale is a bit of a stumper. He has a USA mark, so that puts him as a model from the 1970s. I think he may be from the 1979 special run for mail order companies but I still need to do some research.

Liz and I traded my BreyerFest Tassili for one of her Seven Arts Surprise models, and we did the hand off at Happy Trails.

This or the palomino pintaloosa were the two I was hoping to get. I'm really happy with this piece.

The Indian Pony is one of my top five favorite molds, and so I had to get the Tractor Supply special run, Sayen. She has gorgeous shading and is absolutely lovely.

Liz had a sales table at Happy Trails and had Breyer's flagship model Livingston for sale.

He's now mine, too!

I also received Breyer's Christmas Pony, Gingerbread, but he will get his own blog post soon.

Stay 'tooned!

Getting into the Spirit

When you are participating in an 18th century event, you need to look the part - especially if you are the event manager. So, why was my sister driving around the grounds of the Feast in a 21st century golf cart on Friday? That just wouldn't do.

So, in the spirit of sisterly love, I took matters into my own hands, just to help her out, of course.

I grabbed a Hong Kong knock off of the Hartland Clydesdale from the shelf in my sewing room, some packing tape from the Mercantile, and "hitched up" the horse to her golf cart.

That was much better! 

True, the grounds were not yet open and wouldn't be for another day (it was set-up day for the re-enactors), but still, having a horse drawn conveyance helped us all get into that 18th century spirit.

Lafayette: Love That Color!

There has been a lot of controversy over Lafayette's color. To be fair, the initial photos Breyer released had no text and he did look jet black in them. But, just as your teachers used to say, "Always read the directions!" 

Lewis Carroll in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland.

If you didn't read the text that came via email or was posted on Breyer's website when Lafayette was released, you did not realize that he was not actually jet black. Here's a cut and paste from the information from Breyer's website:

The first Collector Club special of 2021 is Lafayette! Dark and bold, this handsome American Saddlebred stallion has a shaded dapple black coat over a silver basecoat. Topped with a high gloss finish and decorated with silver & blue ribbons in his mane, Lafayette is striding confidently into the new year!

Full disclosure, this teacher didn't "read the directions," either. I was just as surprised as everyone else. But, I am thrilled with the color.

It reminds me very much of Rumbling Thunder who was  released in 1993. (My glossy charcoal Running Stallion is far more valuable than Rumbling Thunder, but Rumbling Thunder is my absolute favorite color in my Running Stallion conga.)

German Export Chinook, a 1994 special run on the beloved Indiana Pony, is also a similar color although she is very, very matte. (Mine is much darker than the one Identify Your Breyer shows. Love those variations!)

Glossy dapple grey Storm, a 2000 Sears special run, is lighter than my Lafayette, but I received one of the dark versions of Lafayette. 

The lighter colored Lafayette in this photo looks more like Storm, my Five Gaiter. (Photo by Breyer Trot and taken from Google Images.)

In 1997 Sears sold this Field Hunter in their holiday catalog. Like Rumbling Thunder, this piece is my favorite of all my Jumping Horses.

The final model I pulled from my collection to compare is the Clydesdale from the 1992 Sears holiday catalog. His color is very metallic and there are no dapples in his coat.

Lafayette lined up with the other similarly colored models. 

He's one gorgeous model, and I am so happy to have been able to get him. But you can bet that next time, this teacher will do what she always told her students to do and will READ THE DIRECTIONS before hitting that buy button!

A New Metlox Piece!

Any day that you get a box from Nancy Falzone is a good day.

And yesterday was a very good mail day - look what she sent me!

This is the Metlox Poppytrail Turning Budweiser Clydesdale, a piece that Anheuser-Busch commissioned the Metlox company to produce.

My photos do not do it justice - the mane ribbons and bobs are beautiful and the gold accented hardware is stunning.

The piece is very large (as big as the large Metlox Drafters) and very heavy. It is the second version (indicated by the better gold detail and mane decorations) of the piece.

Nancy is known for her fabulous Hagen Renaker collection, but she has also acquired a lot of other chinas over the years. She is parting with some of those as well as some of her Hagen Renakers. (I have a palomino Roughneck and Scamper, a Lefton donkey, and an unknown Zebra coming in the next box from her.) 

Thank you, Nancy, for letting me add this beautiful boy to my collection!

Dad's Slides: Two Early Breyers and an Earthquake

Just as I'd hoped, a slide of me with some of my earliest Breyers has been found. The box of slides this one came from is labeled 1968, so that would make make this my eleventh birthday. 

Hercules, the Clydesdale with gold bobs is on the left, and Torpedo, the Western Horse is on the right.

Both pieces are still with me and proudly displayed on my shelves.

Torpedo has an interesting story behind him. One day I was playing with my carpet herd, sitting on the floor next to their shelf. Torpedo was still on the shelf, and his reins were hanging down (like they are in the photo above.) 

Suddenly, those reins began swinging back and forth. I remember being very surprised - I had not been touching the shelf and no one else was in the room with me. What was going on? 

It was an earthquake! Centered in southeastern Illinois, it struck on Saturday, November 9, 1968 at 11:02 AM and measured 5.4 on the Richter scale. The red dot with the arrow is West Lafayette, where I lived then and where I live now.

We've had three more earthquakes that I have felt and can remember since then - 1987, 2008, and 2010. I was nowhere near Torpedo during those to check his reins and see if they were swinging, but I would imagine they were.

As I remember this story from my past with Torpedo, I look around at the other vintage models I own, models that I have found in antique shops, on eBay, and in other places. I wonder what stories they could tell?

Early No Muscle Clydesdale

I spied this lovely Clydesdale for sale at last month's GLC show and, after thinking about it for a few hours, went back and bought it.

  He's the early, no-muscle version and in great shape for his age. 

The eighth bob has been reglued as has an ear tip  but that doesn't bother me one bit. There is no Breyer stamp, either, so between that and the no-muscles, that makes him a very early piece. (There are five versions of the bay Clydesdale; this is version one. Some version ones had eye whites while others, like mine, did not.)

One of my first Breyers was the bay Clydesdale Stallion with gold bobs (above). I named him Hercules, and he was the "strong man" of my carpet herd. A gentle giant. As a result, I have a very soft spot in my heart for these early Clydesdales.

So, I am really happy to add this piece to my collection.