Dressage?

Il fait froid!

'Morning! Brrrr! It's cold. Il fait froid! Time to start sealing up windows this week!

 

I filled up my scroll and Rianna had, too, so we did other things around yesterday. I cut up wood for train modules, with Geordan's help, and made some sanding blocks with the scraps so we can all smooth the pieces. I worked on a custom I've been noodling with for a year or so and started putting together a micro arena performance set for photographing. Rianna sewed doll dresses from an old bandana and had some nice pretend play from that & Geordan rounded up all his construction vehicles, made a Star Wars card house populated with Mini Whinnies and their accessories.

Parade Bridle Progress

Kim Ford made this saddle for the little Appaloosa I bought from her and I'm making the bridle, breastcollar and blanket for it.  I had a headstall started, glued some square glitter to a browband and the cheeks.  I'm unhappy with the buckles I made and am remaking it.  I'll try gold buckles and silver keepers below them and make them a little smaller.

I like how the glitter looks, how to seal it, though?  A leather sealer like Super Sheen might knock out some of the shine...maybe.  The bit looks fine, good scale and shines up good.  The lace may be too wide, but I'm not sure I have any control over that.  I can try to split down some more of my old black lace...and make myself even more blind.  This looks like it was cut with a v-gouge, it may have been.  We did get some more boxes to pack stuff to put in storage.  I'd love to get to my leather tools, got everything in there!  Someone was selling a Rio Rondo basketweave stamp...it's expected to get up around $250!  My smallest are all too huge for any of this, but I think I can use some of the figure modeling tools for some tooling on saddles.

There will be a throat latch to this, too.  Maybe some silver "conchos" on "chain" down the front, if I can manage it.  I have some gold findings to cut apart for accents on the breast collar. 

I finished two Stablemate scale show whips for showing the Arabs.  They're braided, waxed sewing thread around a sewing pin base.  They turned out really nice and I look forward to getting some showmanship photos of the Arabs!

Unfinished Business

Shipping Ouchies, originally uploaded by SideShowMom.

UPS delivered this to us last Tuesday. The shipper filed a claim on it and an inspector was supposed to contact me. They haven't, so we're taking it down to the Sorting Facility in our area this morning. Poor Rianna got As & Bs all year to earn these sets (collect the three sets and you get a stallion model, the "sire" of the foals). I can do the repair work, but I didn't pay for a "body" quality model...ya know?

Update: I got an email from the seller, UPS approved the claim, they're sending the new model (and some extra "goodies") today with a pre-paid return label for the damaged one!!

Summer Vacation

Well, the kids are out of school as of last Friday and today they're fussing because I'm making them do "homework!"  They need to keep up skills they don't use on a daily basis; for Rianna, it's math and writing, for Geordan, it's writing numbers, letters and words.  Science and social development are everyday things, so I'm not making "lessons" outside of everyday interactions or play.  For example, yesterday we went to a small Hunter/Jumper horse show and the kids got to see the difference in the jumps the Hunter classes have and that it's more about the rider's posture, position and handling of the horse than about time to complete the course.  They also saw kids their own ages on the horses, something they can aspire to if they can learn to control themselves and listen to teachers and coaches. 

When we came home, Rianna and I started working on making halters for some of our larger models using leather lace and wire for hardware.  We used a tack catalog to see how a halter should fit and we measured the pieces on the models as we made each piece.  Rianna didn't want to try skiving (shaving the ends of the leather lace thinner where it folds over to glue on a ring) with my sharpened craft knife, but we talked about the safe handling of the knife and how to strop the blade to sharpen it.  She also learned how to carefully handle gel super glue and that it can be removed from glued fingers without loss of too much skin. 

I didn't mention reading.  Rianna reads really well and reads everything she can, especially if it has to do with horses or fantasy creatures.  My guidance of her involves having her slow down and sound unfamiliar words out instead of skipping over them and learning what they mean, from context if possible.  Geordan gets read to every day, by me or Rianna, and is learning to recognize frequent words.  He brought a book home from school that is a story told in a series of poems in the style of William Blake.  We will look him up and find examples of his artwork and poetry as we go this summer.