Monday

Monday will be the last day of October, the first day of another grading period for my college, Halloween, and the day I'll be interviewed by the TV people! It's official: 11 a.m. Monday morning, they're going to show up at my house and film me making a saddle and whatever else they think will look good.  I honestly have no idea what's going to go down, but I think it's going to be a blast!

Until Monday, I will be...

....Dusting.  Obsessively.  My collection is not large in terms of space, but then again - Stablemates don't take up much room. 
....Working on a couple of saddles.  I'm terrified that something will go wrong with the western saddle I have set aside to assemble, so I'm going to start an english saddle just in case.
....Organizing.  Also obsessively.  Some people will probably look at this hobby as funny, and I want to make sure that I present a neat, tidy, and more or less normal appearance*.  I would like to point out that the reception of the article has been 100% positive and surprisingly enthusiastic.
....Freaking out.  Just a little.  I'm a bit socially awkward and talk fast, faster when I'm nervous.  That about sums it up.

After Monday, I will be...
...Freaking out. Just a lot.  I had some control over the article, but once they pull out of my driveway I have zero control over what goes on that TV. 
....Breathing a sigh of relief.  It'll be over! I'll have done something I've never done before, theoretically grown as a person, and stepped way outside of my comfort zone.
....Preparing for the comments that are sure to follow whenever it airs.  Though in a way, it might be less than expected.  We print 2000ish copies of the newspaper every month, and I know a lot of people in this town.  Sure, the TV spot will probably reach more people, but the stations cover about 10 counties and I don't know a lot of people out there!

I'm sorry there's been a lot of silence on the blog lately.  I'm finally finding a schedule with classwork, so I'm hoping to spend some more time on the Stablemate tutorial and this poor blog.  I actually got some more editing done last week, so hopefully there's an end in sight.  I'm also going through the process of getting the student edition of Adobe's Creative Suite, so I'll have the tools I need to put this out in a polished PDF.

I also got a little more done on my dapple grey mule! Meet "Boo."

She's far from done, but I like where she's going.  I have a collection of four mule resins now; this girl, Frank, Ellie Mae, and the AA mule.  I named my copy of Frank "Atticus" after the character from To Kill A Mockingbird, and I'm continuing the theme with the rest of my mules.  Ellie Mae has been dubbed Harper, but the AA Mule will have to wait until he's been repaired and has some clothes before he gets a name.





*We all know I'm not normal, so I guess it's trying to look a little less abnormal than normal. Right?

Weekend Warrior

Aside from a midterm on Saturday, my weekend was free of homework.  I was finally able to sit down and work on a few projects.  Half a season or more of Stargate SG-1 later, and I've got a finished sales piece!

This set includes raised snaffle bridle with laced reins, breastplate (removable), saddle, girth, and I'll finish up a square pad tomorrow.  It's on MH$P and listed at $110 PPD.  Mostly cause, well...the iPhone bug has bitten.  Hard.  I can't justify spending my regular paycheck on one, but model money is "fun" money.  Those things are just too cool.  My dad upgraded his phone to the iPhone 4, and I've had a lot of fun playing with it.  

My poor Little Lonestar is already a casualty of my clumsiness.  Poor guy took a nosedive and would have made an Olympic diver proud...right up until the landing.  He lost half of an ear and some of his tail.  He'll be repaired whenever I ship him out for painting, but I'm in no hurry.

In addition to the sales piece, I also finished the remodeled parade set.  The raffle saddle is still a WIP, but I didn't hear back from the TV people this week.  I was planning to work on that saddle during filming, but I can't hold off on it indefinitely.  If I don't hear from them by next Friday or so I'm moving forward with it.

**Update**

The set is sold!

You Know You Live In A Small Town, Part Two

I had an interesting email last week...

Hi Anna,
My name is Deborah and I am a reporter at Kansas First News (NBC, ABC and Fox) in Topeka. I read an article in the Jefferson County News about you and your business, and would also love to cover your story on our newscast.


Yup, from the frying pan to the fire! Or, rather, newspaper to television.  I'm on the quiet side and pretty shy, so the newspaper interview was a huge stretch for me.  Now it looks like I'll have cameras and a reporter to work with!  I've been emailing back and forth a bit and we're going to set up a date sometime after the 24th to do the interview.

I really enjoyed talking to the newspaper reporter (who just so happened to be my boss's daughter...remember, it's a small town!) about my hobby, which surprised me.  I think the TV interview, if it happens, will be just as fun.

In the model world, I'm still working away on Tami's saddle.  I'm doing something intelligent and carving everything I can prior to dyeing it.  Normally my workflow is a little more haphazard; I'll carve and dye in chunks, assembling things as I go.  This means that typically, the two skirts are carved and dyed first, along with the leather to cover the swells.  Once the skirts, rigging, and swells have been assembled I'll carve and dye the fenders.  Those go on, and then I construct the seat.  There's usually some fiddling with the jockeys because the pattern pieces never fit quite right.  Those are carved and dyed, usually with the cantle, and then those are added.  Stirrups are usually last, and then it's on to the bridle and other odds and ends.

I'm hoping that by dyeing everything possible in one batch, I can avoid inconsistencies in color.  One of the dyes that I am considering (Timber) for the saddle varies in color depending on how much you use.  I won't have to leave my dyeing stuff out all the time either, if I dye everything on one day and let it sit!  I'm going to be assembling Tami's saddle on camera, which is another reason to get everything done NOW.

Another Pretty on the Wish List

The recent spate of posts was due to the discovery of the schedule feature that Blogger offers.  I wrote them up in two days and scheduled them to go off every other day.  It was wonderful! Unfortunately, I don't have a whole lot to talk about now and very little brain power to think of some insightful topic to speak of.  Today, anyway, an email will take care of the problem.

Stacey Tumlinson is releasing a mini version of Covenant Kept! The mini is called Covenant Renewed and is curio scale, 4 inches long.  I'm guessing he'll be pretty close to Dinky Duke in size.  Unfortunately, there's no money in the pony fund because I haven't had time for tack! Under normal circumstances I might just buy it anyway but I've got a trifecta of expenses: new car, Christmas, and tuition (shudder!) are all on the radar.  Sigh.  I do a lot of trading, but that's only helpful if I have the time to work on tack!

Right now most of my time, as always, is spent on class work.  Any spare time is spent learning how to drive the (insert impolite word here) stick shift.  I'm finessing a lot of things before I'm safe to unleash on heavily populated areas and it's not going...smoothly.  Literally, haha.  It'll come, though, and I really enjoy driving it.

Hakuna Matata!

I went to see the Lion King in 3-D during it's two-week stint in theaters.  It's the movie I remember the most from my childhood.  My brother and I had the toys, the clothes, and my wonderful grandma embroidered us pillow cases with Nala and Simba on them.  Apparently she let us look through a coloring book to pick what we wanted! Those pillow cases seem to have vanished, unfortunately.

If you wondered whether or not the reissue of this movie was worth the $13.50 admission price (not to mention the cost of popcorn and a drink!), the answer is YES.  Completely, totally, 110% worth it.

The animation, brilliant to begin with, is enhanced by 3-D technology rather than overshadowed by it.  The original film had some amazing moments that are completely brought to life in this updated viewing.  The wildebeast stampede, the flying birds, the rain at the end after Simba defeats Scar! It's all brilliant.  The movie comes out on BluRay and DVD today, I believe, and I'm going to have to buy it at some point!

Experimenting

I've long been unsatisfied with my method for making western saddle trees.  Currently, I use scrap leather to build up the shape but the swells are unwieldy, the seat unpredictable, and the cantle is usually misshapen.  It bothers me, it really does.

So I've been thinking, how hard can it really be to sculpt my own trees?  Yesterday I had intended to go to Hobby Lobby and buy some Sculpy to play around with, but by the time I got out of the theater (that's another post!) it was closed.  Bummer.  I couldn't find modeling clay at Walmart and settled for PlayDoh for the sake of experimentation.  I almost couldn't find the PlayDoh, though! Do kids just not do that stuff anymore? I remember it being huge when I was little, with play sets all over the place.

I played around while watching a movie for my U.S. History class.  From left to right are my first, second, and third attempts.

The one on the far right has the best seat shape, but I hacked into the swells too far when I was trimming it down.  I think I need to lengthen all of the trees to accommodate the added thickness of leather, plus I think I erred on the side of too short when sculpting them.

Two things that I've noticed: it's really, really hard to get the shape of the swells correct and even though I'm really, really excited about sculpting these trees, it may limit the fit of saddles.  I don't know exactly how that's going to work yet.  I made the trees on three different horses: Little Lonestar (far left), the G4 Para Dressage horse, and the Stone Chips stock horse.  You could have a picnic on the back of the para dressage horse, so his tree is obviously not that great on the much narrower Chip.  Still, when you add in the leather for the skirt none of the trees fit that badly.

This is the second tree, modeled on a long-unfinished concept for a parade saddle and the G4 Driving horse.

The concept of sculpting trees has merit, regardless.  I'll play around with these, but I doubt I'll make any saddles to sell off of them or any other PlayDoh trees.  I'm concerned about how well PlayDoh would hold up to repeated use.  When I get some Sculpy I'll see what happens.