Off Topic Tue...its saturday: Yoga What?

trend

trend/

noun

1. 1.

   
   

   a general direction in which something is developing or changing.
2.       "an upward trend in sales and profit margins"
3. 
   
4. 2.

   a fashion.

   
   

   "the latest trends in modern dance"

   
   

   
   

Trends are a funny thing sometimes. They come and go, sometimes they stick around, and other times they are a little off the wall. I'm not sure what category this falls under, but I did a trendy thing. I did THE trendy thing. I did GOAT YOGA. 

I'm gonna let that sink in.......

Yoga. WITH GOATS. 

I have photo proof!

It was every bit as fantastic as you'd imagine. It was a little less....soothing and relaxing than regular yoga, but the goats 100% made up for it. No, they made it better. In some of the poses, I'd feel an ear brush my leg, or a little hoof land on my mat, or the soft, quiet, soothing munching sound. Just in case all of this wasn't enough, they were fainting goats. Which made it even better yet. 

At the end of the yoga, we had some time to cuddle and play with the goats. Some were getting hungry and tried to weasel their way through the fence, and a small one succeeded. The larger one wasn't so successful. She got stuck half way through, began to "faint" a little bit, and got even more stuck in the fence. I hope she didn't know we were laughing at her. 

The sweet goat took a liking to me, and I was told she liked to rub her face on your cheek. She soon proved them right, and I was treated to many goat face rubs, while I scratched her back and otherwise loved up on her. 

1. 
   

This little cutie was named Mariposa

I had every intention of posting this last tuesday, because the goat yoga was the 23rd, but this week ended up really busy. I'm trying to get ready for a model show on October 13th, and I have SO much to do! It's overwhelming! I'm finally making nice show stands for my table, so I cut the flexible tubing this week, and now I'm trying to make soft fabric sleeves to go over the tubing, but I'm having trouble with our sewing machine. I might end up hand sewing these. 24 of them! I still have to name and tag all the horses going, decide who is doing performance, tack up those doing performance, make up the documentation (this is the absolute WORST part for me, and I'm terrible at it!), get all the props I'm using together and make anything I still need, the list goes on....Here's to hoping for a productive week! 

A strip of soft material to cover the tubing, and the problematic sewing machine

I almost forgot! My dick blick order came in since my last post too. Considering recent hobby trends, I'll let you all figure out what these are for ;)

Monday Model: glossy Once Upon a Time

I picked today's model because he just arrived this afternoon! He was a special run at Breyerfest in 2011, and Identify Your Breyer says that there were 375 matte, and 375 glossy made. He is on mold #579, the show jumping warmblood, which was sculpted by Susan Carlton Sifton in 2004. 

He is in great shape, minus a couple minor marks under the gloss, and some faint yellowing on his blanket. I've been a real sucker for this mold ever since I got an Ideal as a kid. He was one of my favorite in the carpet herd, and was played with frequently. I've been searching for a mint Ideal and Mon Gamin for a while, but haven't found the right one at the right time yet. This pretty guy will just have to hold me over until I do. 

Today I ordered $140 worth of paint from Dick Blick because my imagination won't stop :o more on that when it arrives, and I did get some time in my studio space, and made some progress on the rainbow halters:

Nosebands and some prepped hardware. You can see just a little bit of in-progress girth buckles in the lower right corner. 

Nosebands assembled and cheekpieces cut

I was starting to get tired at this point, but I just had to get some of the orange on there tonight!

 I also tried my "medium" sizing halter on a Carrick mold, and voila, a perfect fit!
This halter was sized on a Victrix, and I need to take some time to try it on a lot of models, as I think it will fit a wide variety of heads. So I'll make at least a couple of my geometric print halters in this size.

"Medium" halter on Cortes C. 

Coming Back

The blogger bandwagon must be a bumpy ride, because I sure fell off quick. That said, it didn't happen just because. This summer has been a really rough one in more ways than one
(the past year really), and everything just kind of came to a head in the beginning of August. I'm still trying to get things back to normal. I'm trying to learn as I do, and I think that's the most important part. The past month and a half hasn't been easy, but it feels good to finally be going in a positive direction for the most part, even though the road is still a little bumpy.

When everything came to a head in the beginning of August, I needed to take some time away from the hobby, blogging, and computer time, and many other things, to focus on fixing the things that were spiraling out of control. I've been so focused on figuring out how to stop the spiraling that I've had no desire to work on any studio projects, or even do anything with my models. This means the projects that my imagination has been pleading me to do for months had to be put on hold, such as the rainbow prism halters, the professional's choice smx girths, the carrick I want to paint, the western bridle I've been itching to make, the geometric halters, The sales display I want to make, the list goes on. On friday, I rearranged one of my shelves to be able to fit some more models on it, and moved my tack collection to a different shelf, in an attempt to get some hobby spark back. And tonight, I finally went downstairs to my studio space

My basement studio table, and some storage areas.

and worked on some of the girths, and the rainbow halters.

Brown sizing halter is done, and the nosebands and hardware prep have been started. The upper right corner is some girth hardware and parts.

I had to force myself a little bit, but I'm really glad I did. It worked. Now I really WANT to make progress on these projects, and see how they turn out. Hopefully I'll have some time tomorrow night after my work to make some progress, and I'll try to do another monday model post! In the meantime, here are some of my new hobby additions for the past couple months, including this AMAZING set of jumping boots from Cristina Brown, of On The Bit Studio, and some photos of the things I've done since we left off, because in order to get better, you have to balance the difficult things with some fun. 

The jumping boots! I love them. The Rafael resin came to me early on in the summer, probably about June. I kind of bought him on a whim as I'd never seen one before, and I love him. He seems like he will be versatile for performance. 

Hind boot detail

Front boot detail. They even have "carbon fiber" strike pads :)

Love this guy! I'm hoping I'll have his matching rainbow halter done soon. 

My first Peter Stone trotting drafter

Like everyone else, I love this mold! Can't wait until we get more color choices.

My tack making view. When I want to paint, I sit on the other side of the table, about where Templado's tail is. I don't have any active painting projects right now, so that area of the table has gotten a little crowded. 

Sizing halter for the Andalusian Stallion mold. He has been a real challenge to fit and I'm still not thrilled. We'll see how these turn out. 

I held a cute little salamander at a work training.....

had a delicious chicken bacon ranch pizza....

Won first (out of 2) with my April Tack Month halter at the local fair.....

passed the one year anniversary of having my own saddle....

and had some delicious (half price!) sushi.