Planning for BreyerFest

This summer, I am planning on doing something I have never done before, even as someone who has been attending BreyerFest since 1991:

Stay at the Clarion. 

It's hard to believe that I have never done that. In the early days, it was due to cost (six kids at home says it all) and the second reason was to be able to sleep. The BreyerFest host hotel is always hopping into the wee hours of the morning and I've been happy in the past to mingle and shop until I was tired and then head back to my own (much quieter) hotel.

It is now or never to do this. Battling the heat and crowds at BreyerFest is starting to wear me out more and more, and I can see me attending BreyerFests through the virtual option in the near future. 

I'm near the beginning of the wait list for a room, and so Horsiemama's Haversacks & Mercantile may just have a presence there!

Which means I have been sewing, sewing, sewing to get ready. I'd like to have a lot of haversacks and pony pads to bring to sell.

I've made about 30 haversacks already this January, some for sale

and some as donations. (This was a donation for Are You Kitten Me Live.)

As I stitch for BreyerFest sales, I am also sewing customer orders as well.

For every customer order I receive and make,

I make extras out of that fabric to sell at BreyerFest.

As you can probably tell by the colors and patterns on most of these haversacks,

I am also sewing for holidays, too.

Pinks, purples, and minty green for Valentine's Day.

Even orange and red dragons for Valentine's Day!

But I am sewing other colors, too, like this pretty blue Dala Horse fabric.

Not only do I plan to sell haversacks and pony pads at the Clarion, though. The name of my business is Horsiemama's Haversacks & Mercantile, so I plan to sell other horsey items as well.

I'd love to bring some of my horsey blackened beeswax ornaments.

Maybe even offer a choice between blackened and non blackened.

Either way, you still get that wonderful beeswax scent. (This ornament is not finished and still needs some of the excess cinnamon removed.)

Besides haversacks, I have other things I can sew, especially with my embroidery machine.

I can make ornaments of all kinds.

I made these dancing cowfolks for Tim and Loni's Christmas gift last year. I'll bet they would sell well.

Horseshoe ornaments in a variety of colors and prints.

An English rider (still experimenting with this one.)

The ubiquitous unicorn. (Note to self: no more turquoise eyes on the purple ones!)

A drafter that also works well as a pony. 

And I have lots of different designs I could embroider on hand towels.

All this is dependent on my getting a room at the Clarion and a few other things on the calendar staying where they currently are and not needing to be moved.

My fingers are crossed - staying in the Clarion is a bucket list item for me. I sure do hope my name is pulled from the wait list.

In the meantime, back to the sewing machine!