Too, Too, Small

Ever since I started Horsiemama's Haversacks & Mercantile last August, my horse room has become more and more cramped and crowded.

It has gotten to the point where I have so many tubs and things for sewing and embroidering that to access many of my models, I had to rearrange and move things around.

So many of my hobby supplies are in that closet, and to access them I had to move the ironing board and the boxes tucked behind the table (that you can't see), squeeze past the table, and carefully open the doors. Getting to that shelf of horses on the right meant moving the table in addition to everything else.

I'd tucked drawered storage units under my desk

and had baskets of towel blanks that were waiting to be embroidered sitting on the floor - there just was no other place to put them.

Accessing other shelves in the room also required moving things around and then putting them back in place when I was finished.

I even had tubs underneath the sewing table itself - and that meant I could not open the windows or  blinds without working around (and over) the table and tubs.

My back has really been bothering me, especially as I juggle tubs and things in order to sew, embroider, or work on my collection. Today as I was moving some things around, it hit me - after my spinal fusion in a few weeks, I was going to be under a lot of restrictions for bending, lifting, and twisting for quite some time. There was simply no way that I would be able to continue moving things around multiple times a day in my horse room.

Fortunately, I had another option. More tomorrow.

A True Horse Girl

 A true horse girl will always find the horse. Doesn't matter if it is when she is reading a book, watching TV, driving in a car - if there is a horse, she will find it.

That pile of Duplos in the foreground are ones the Pony Pal Mila has sorted out of the tub and moved into "her" pile.

Sorting through the tub and snagging all the horses? I'd say that that's more evidence that Pony Pal Mila is a true horse girl.

Spring Horse Therapy

"'Spring! Spring! Spring!' sang the robin. It was Spring. The leaves burst out. The flowers burst out. And robins burst out of their eggs. It was Spring."

A Home for a Bunny by Margaret Wise Brown. 

Spring is definitely bursting out here in Indiana. The grass is greening up, the horses are starting to shed their winter coats, and the days are sunny and warmer.

Tim has done the first mowing of the grounds and is planning on trimming hooves soon. I'm working on helping Abby shed her winter fuzz and just enjoying spending time with her in the lovely Spring weather.

One of the things I love most about Abby is that she tags along with me and follows me wherever I go. (In fact, that behavior is what made me decide to bring her home from Indiana Horse Rescue.)

We wandered around a bit together, and then just stood and soaked up the sunshine. I gave her some scritches and walked around her to check for any cuts or bumps. 

Abby stood contentedly, ears cocked back to listen as I talked to her.

I'm a little stressed about my upcoming spinal fusion and it's weighing pretty heavily on my mind. Spending time on a warm Spring day with Abby was just what I needed. 

Mercantile Possibilities - a Sneak Peek

Last August when I opened Horsiemama's Haversacks & Mercantile, I only offered haversacks. But I had included the word "Mercantile" deliberately because I intended to offer other horsey items, too.

Here's a sneak peek at some of the things that I am considering adding to the Mercantile.

A gingerbread English rider. With the breeches and boots the same color, you can't see them very well so I plan to vary their colors.

This horseshoe design can also be used as an appliqué on clothes, towels, bags, and more.

Ginger Shires in Purdue colors (top, made for Craig), and then in a variety of unrealistic colors

because the Pony Pals especially love pinks, purples, blues, and other colors.

The ginger line dancing cowboy and cowgirl are complicated to make but I love how they turned out. You can see that I learned to vary colors so that the boots show!

The ginger horse in the upper right is how the design says to make it, but that white icing blaze can easily become a unicorn horn as it did in the other three.

The Heart Horses were well received when I first showed them in January and are already on offer in the Mercantile.

I'm not just working on ornaments - I am experimenting with towels, both the standard kitchen towel as well as flour sack ones.

I have quite a supply of blank towels on hand, but I am practicing first on cheap muslin scraps to be sure I understand how the digital design will stitch out and to ensure that my color choices worked.

This design has gone through four iterations but I am finally happy with the colors.

This is my favorite towel design so far even though it's not horsey.

This design of a barn in the snow has taken a lot of practice pieces and color changes from the original design to get it to where I was satisfied. I am going to see if I can also make it as a white barn with a green roof and trim.

This is a very rough first stitch out on a piece of terry cloth but I think it is going to look nice. 

In addition to the Horsiemama Facebook page, I also have a room in the Road to BreyerFest Sales and Trade site where I will be posting things that I have made.

It may seem odd for me to be stitching things for Christmas already, but I'd like to have a lot of things ready to take to live shows now that states are beginning to open up as more and more people are fully vaccinated. (Indiana is 100% open.)

And, since I have another spinal fusion coming up later this month, I don't know how long it will be before I can sit down and sew again. After my first one in 2016, I had bending, twisting, and lifting restrictions so I assume I will have those again (and possibly more because he is fusing more vertebrae than he did last time.)

Preparing for live shows and time away from the sewing machine due to surgery are legitimate reasons that I am sewing so many things right now. But an even bigger reason (maybe even the REAL reason) is that I am having fun experimenting and making horsey things.

Resilience and Rising Above

 (This is a non horsey post. I am using the names of those involved because their names have been published in the news in various places.)

Two years ago, Jane Schick, the mother of one of my students (and someone that I babysat when I was in high school) was brutally murdered by her husband during a domestic dispute. He then turned the gun on himself and took his own life. My student and his sister were home when it happened and as you might imagine, their lives were totally upended by that event. 

Adam and his sister went to Indianapolis to live with their father, but with tremendous support from not only family but the school administration and faculty, he and Sophie continued attending school here in West Lafayette. That meant that at least school remained the same for them while the rest of their lives had so radically changed, but I was concerned about that long 60 mile drive to and from school every day, especially during winter weather.

Today I got a text from a friend telling me that Adam and Lauren Smith, another one of my former students, had both been named National Merit Scholar finalists. I about cried when I heard the news. I was proud of them both, but to know that Adam had achieved that honor despite all the tragedy and challenges he has faced the past two years, well, I had to sit down and catch my breath.

Adam and Lauren both were asked to write a little bit about themselves in the announcement from the Tippecanoe School Corporation, and as I read what Adam wrote, it was clear that he had had to dig deep within himself to find this academic success. I cannot imagine the fortitude it took, but he proved that he was resilient and rose above his challenges.

Congratulations to both Lauren and Adam. I am so proud of you both, and felt that your accomplishment merited a blog post in your honor. 

The logo for William Henry Harrison High School where Adam and Lauren attend school. (It's my alma mater, too, and I love that it has a horse in its logo!)

Nonoma - Still Some Mystery

 The second offering of the 2021 Vintage Club has arrived and Breyer has made this one's release really intriguing.

First, they did not release photos of the club's models when members renewed or joined last year. That piqued a lot of interest and the club sold out quickly.

Then, Breyer gave collectors a clue as to one of the offerings with the stamp on Julius's belly. Every year the club belly stamp is of one of that year's models, so we knew that the Foundation Stallion (Azteca) would be coming as one of the releases.

What he would look like, though, was a mystery, and in my opinion, Breyer scored on this one. Nonoma is beautiful!

Breyer's description of him on their web site continued the surprise aspect: Nonoma is dressed in a new modern grullo variation inspired by the brown pinto paint job made famous by the original Breyer Indian Pony.  SURPRISE!! Native American warpaint symbols, if present, will vary in this release! Four different variations.

Notice that "if present" in the text? That means that some Nonomas will not have any warpaint at all. Now the question hobbyists are asking is, does this mean there are four warpaint variations and one non-warpaint for a total of five different Nonomas? Or are there three warpaint variations and one without? I lean toward the first because the club is limited to 500 people, and that would easily divide into 100 of each of the five variations.

At this point, I have only seen four variations and that includes the one with no warpaint. I was lucky and got the one with all the markings. (The variations that have surfaced are no markings, nose and neck, eye and flank, and all five.) 

The Foundation Stallion was done as a Lakota Pony in 1992. There were four different options available, but a fifth is listed on Identify Your Breyer. Was it a variation by mistake? Or was it an actual part of the release?

I wouldn't be surprised if there isn't a fifth variation that some collector will discover, maybe even like the chase pieces in the blind bags.

Sometimes with Breyer you never know, and that is okay with me. In the meantime, I am really pleased with my Nonoma and am looking forward to the next offering.

Stablemate Barn

Breyer currently is producing a really nice barn for Stablemates. It can stand alone on a shelf or dresser or it can be hung on the wall. (Photo taken from Breyer's web site.)

The barn also comes with four Stablemates in a set called Dappled and Dots. 

Currently I have a nice set-up for my Stablemates (which I don't collect) - two four tier clear acrylic cupcake risers.

I like them very much, but the Stablemates are prone to falling over when there is the slightest bump to the risers. I have had more cascades that I can count.

The new barn Breyer was offering looked promising because it had that fence to keep pieces from toppling over. So, when I ordered my Vintage Club Nonoma, I also ordered the barn.

The fact that all four Stablemates in the promo picture are set at an angle should have been a clue as to how the barn would work. That fence is set so far back, nearly all my Stablemates had to be set in at an angle, too. And that eats shelf space.

So, the cupcake risers are still out and in use for the longer models who would not fit.

I'm not sure what I am going to do with them - I was hoping to use that space for more models books. I did check to see if I could remove the fences on the barn and move them out a bit. There is certainly space to do that, but they have been set and glued into holes.

I ended up with mixed emotions about the barn. On the one hand, I did get a lot of Stablemates into it, and it is very well made. I am really pleased with the quality.

But, I still have 43 Stablemates either in boxes or on the cupcake risers. Should I buy another barn? Or should I continue to use the risers?

(Maybe the solution is to just stop buying Stablemates.)