Books and An Almost Saddle

Yay that saddle only needs piping now.

I'm really really happy with how this saddle came out. 

Most of my day was spent at a book signing though.

It was a book launch for Maria V Snyder's newest book, Shadow Study.

I also won these really pretty Australian/British covers.

Almost

The bridle's done! I really like it.

The saddle only needs panels and a girth. So it's almost done.

Toys On The Square

After my class today I went to Toys On The Square. It's an awesome toy store in Hummelstown that carries unique toys, including Breyers.

I remember when I was small and how I could spend hours trying to decide which Breyer to get. But today I didn't find what I was looking for (even though I was tempted by a few!).
Instead I found some Safari Puppies and a cat.
The cat is traditional scaled.

 The puppies are too! And they're adorable.

Let It Snow

Today it snowed. The weather predictions ranged from 1 inch to 10. I'll have to check in the morning to see how much there was!

During a short break, I took Bullet out to play in the snow. I even put a sweater on him. :)

Snow's pretty when it first falls.

Then my sister and I made a Frozen blanket for a little girl we used to babysit. I think Frozen is still 'cool.' I see little girls wearing Frozen costumes still. :) I still need to watch the movie, but the blanket makes me want to now!

In terms of tack, I made progress on another English saddle.

I haven't had any dye spills that have ended like the last one, which is good.

While waiting for the English saddle to dry I made a pattern for a racing saddle and started making one. 

Everyone Starts Somewhere

While I'm far from calling myself an expert in tack making, I do feel like I'm getting better. I found what I would consider to be the first ever saddle I made. It once was a Breyer saddle and I customized it.

I gave it new knee rolls and redid the tree.

 I gave the saddle shape by inserting a metal tree into it. 

The saddle served me well for my novice days, but I evolved so this saddle has been retired.

So yes, every artist has to start somewhere. You can only go up!

The Leather Dye Spill

My body Peter Stone pony decided to fall which resulted in the domino effect. My dark leather dye spilled. My panels for the English saddle were in the way of the leather dye as was the saddle the panels went to.

*Sighs*

It could have been worse though, so that's a plus.

In better news, if you like tack making and model horse forums, there's another forum for you. It's called Model Equine Tack Association. It's a great forum. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

Happy Valentine's Day!

I made miniature themed donuts and cookies. I really liked my horseshoe cookies.

A good amount of my day was spent doing this.

Friday night is model night so....

That means work on a new saddle! This is being made from the pattern used for the purple saddle. :)

Nerdfighter Meetup

I must say that one of my talents is being directionally challenged. If there's a way to become lost, I will find it, and whoever is with me will follow.
On Saturday, my friend Erin of And Now, for Something Completely Different and I went to Lancaster City to meet up with local Nerdfighters. Here is a definition of a nerdfighter:

"What is a Nerdfighter? A Nerdfighter is a person who instead of being made out of, like, bones and skin and tissue, is made entirely of awesome."

—Hank and John Green

So awesome people. As with model horses, the community is small and you can meetup with others.
Saturday was the first meet up, one that my friend Erin and another Erin put together.
Erin and I drove together and parked. I had the address put into my phone GPS and with my directionally challenged ability, I had the two of us wandering down the street in the complete opposite direction for a half a mile.
Eventually Erin noticed, we walked back, and found the meet up spot that was basically right next to the place that we parked. Talent I tell you. Talent.
So we found our group, did introductions and then shopped around Lancaster.
We went to a really cool British Shop. I bought British Candy.

But there was a range of objects inside

including Dr. Who things

and figurines. 

Then there was the independent bookstore.

It was small and quaint with a friendly person in charge of it. The fangirling moments happened.

I loved how it showed you the flow of the books.

 Books and model horses are my weaknesses. So I did leave with a book. I finally broke down and brought the first Walking Dead graphic novel.
And here's a cool altered book that was on display.

The group of us continued walking down the street, stopping at any store that caught our attention. I never realized how many art related and vintage type of stores there were.
I didn't find any breyers in any of the stores we went to, but I saw plenty of older cameras so my camera took a selfie.

One of the last shops we went to on our day of awesome had a large display of rubber duckies. They weren't regular rubber duckies. There was a rubber ducky for every occasion. So I brought a horse one. 

After grabbing a bite to eat, we parted ways and Erin and I made it home in one piece. Saturday was  a great day. :)

A Horse Rubber Ducky

Today I met up with some friends in Lancaster City.
There will be a more detailed post, but for now here's a horse rubber ducky.  I squealed way too much when I saw it. :)
If you can't find a Breyer, the next best thing is a horse rubber ducky.

Cows Can Do It Better

I added stirrups to the saddle (I need to find my pony sized ones) and placed it on a cow. I mean, the only thing better than a purple saddle is a purple saddle that's on a cow.

Done

The pony saddle is done and the pattern worked, so yay!

I'll get better pictures tomorrow. :)

Purple and Skirts

So the saddle has started to come together. The pattern was spot on except for the skirts. I had to redo them a couple of times to fit the tree.

For the Thoroughbred series, I finished number fourteen and fifteen. I have to wait until number sixteen gets to my house. :) I really need to put them in order to see if anything else is missing because I will finish this series.

Long Intervals

It was a happy occurrence to get onto the internet , see Harper Lee trending, realize it was for a good reason. It was announced that To Kill A Mockingbird would have a sequel  that will be out this summer. To Kill A Mockingbird is one of my favorite books and is going to be Harper Lee's first new work in more than 50 years. Breyerfest won't be the only thing I'll be looking forward to in the summer!
While it hasn't been 50 years since I've completed an English saddle, it's been a while. I feel like there is always something to improve on. So I've been working on fixing my pattern.
The last couple of weeks has surrounded the attempt to do just that.
There was this saddle. It's supposed to fit traditional ponies. I bought a couple of tooling tools and experimented with those on it. I didn't make the under flaps and the panels kind of fell short, but I learned from it and took note of the things to change.

Then there was this saddle which is to fit larger models. There's still tweaking ahead of it. I saved the pieces of this saddle and will go back to it to finish that pattern.

I finished tweaking the pony pattern today. Or I think so!

Along with the pattern I also decided to dye a piece of my lining leather purple, since purple is my favorite color. I used RIT dye.

It worked well and fast too. I didn't listen to the ratio directions and dumped dye into hot water. The back of the bottle said something about teaspoons to gallons of water. I know my ratio was far from that! :)

The Missing Link

It's funny how time moves and how sometimes something that felt like it happened yesterday actually happened many years ago.
Some  summers ago, my mom and I went to a yard sale.
It was the best yard sale ever. A) There were Breyers B) There was a huge case of horse books.
I bought the case of books and most of the Breyers. There was a range of horse books, but one series caught my eye. The Thoroughbred series.
The Thoroughbred series was created by Joanna Campbell in 1991 and lasted 15 years. It ended with 72 books, other authors, and spin off editions .
So I bought them home. Read them. Got to number thirteen. Finished it. Went to start number fourteen....and...there was none. By this point I had been reading two or three of them a day. So not having fourteen put a major damper into the reading binge I was doing. I put the series aside and started on another book and Thoroughbred was pushed to the back of mind. For years.
Of course the logical thing would have been to go and buy number fourteen. Sadly Borders didn't have any and online shopping never crossed my mind.
But I don't do easy. I do difficult.
Difficult meant years later I finally bought the book. I was working in the book store today and decided to check and see if number fourteen was there. And it was. I was told that it had been put away the day before. I'm not 100% sure what made me see if it was there but it must have been meant to be. So here's number fourteen. While I feel like I am passed the intended age group...but better late than never....right? (At this point that's what I'm telling myself!)

Now to finish that chapter of Watchman for graphic novel  class.....