TSII Akhal Teke set No. 3

Back in August of 2020 there was a contest on this blog.  The winner was randomly drawn from those who commented; she would have the opportunity to order one of my Akhal Teke Presentation sets, the third I'd ever made.  I hadn't anticipated the pleasantly positive response.  Somewhat surprisingly, I also didn't anticipate how long it would take to build the thing,... even after 40 years in this field!  and in a season when everything seems to be taking forever.  Thanks to my winner for her superlative patience.

This set uses real sapphires and real rubies, which I got at the Tucson Gem & Mineral Show (back in the days when flying to Tucson was what I did during the first week of February).

The bridle was the last part to be finished.  I thought I'd completed it on Sunday the 31st.  When I sat down to photograph, I discovered I hadn't quite finished it; a few strap slits hadn't gotten in and the poll keeper was too tight. 

The photo session for a piece of TSII tack is a critical time.  It's the tack's last chance to have any errors or mistakes found and fixed.  It's my beta-test time.  No one is harder on this tack than me.

I had known all along that this style of bridle uses two buckles to take on and off:  both the throatlatch and the poll (crown) buckle must be opened completely.  What I hadn't known was how impossible that soft leather was to feed through a tight keeper!  I invented something new:  coating the underside of the tip of the crown strap with nail polish to stiffen it up.  It worked.

I also made a bigger keeper.

One of the pleasures of such a photo shoot is what I learn each time.  Every shoot has a lesson and sometimes there is more than one.  This time there was a lesson in trying to make the colors of the precious stones stand out.  Note that the above pinto (Breyer's Wapasha) shows the rubies at the throat exceptionally well.  I did retouch this photo (stone colors) but I didn't have to do anything to those rubies!

Another trick I learned this time was the difference between regular close-up (macro) and using macro while zooming in.  My camera has 2 settings for macro and the first one allows zooming, something I hadn't known.  I needed to get further back because the lights were in the way, yet zoom in close.  I was enchanted to find out I could get this:  No long ears!!

Lonesome Glory really does have two romance sides!  And, Look Ma no retouches:  the blue sapphire and red ruby colors are as they really are.

(This Wapasha has been customized.  The Indian warpaint markings were removed and semi-realistic pinto markings left in their place.  Technically it's an etch.)

The macro-while-zooming allowed me to solve another problem. Compare the following 2 shots (and try not to laugh).  When I finally put the bridle on Altynai/Talisman (he looked so regal and royal without it, it took courage to finally curb that holy beauty), I tried with zoom and without.  Take a wild guess which one I now prefer:

Until you see them side by side you would not believe how distorted the plain lens makes him!

The next two colors of Lonesome Glory looked, to my surprise, just as good as the others.

Black is certainly a classic color for the Akhal Teke.  Here is a close up of the neckpiece detail:  Again, no enhancing needed!

 I'm aware that the neckpiece could be worn with the fringed ends pointing downwards/forwards and the strap in front,...this would certainly be more realistic, and work well on a model with no mane.  But the customer asked for LG.  (And I wanted to show those rubies.)

I really like this portrait, another one gotten with the help of zooming in while using close-up.

I have 7 Lonesome Glories.  I didn't want to shoot this set on wild Appaloosas, so Quelle Surprise/Riverside Property was out.  Likewise the Goin For Gold/Dunrovin, the horse the set was built off of, had that awful white face and an uninteresting color.  You would think a golden buckskin would do the trick! but somehow the set did not look good on that one.  It was with trepidation I put it on a red Appaloosa, my earliest Lonesome Glory, good old Mardi Gras (appropriate!).  Yet somehow this looked the best of all.

Of course I know Akhal Tekes don't come in Appaloosa or Pinto.

The decision of how to show these tack pieces is up to the owners.  This is as close as I could come to a bay, any bay.  Blue and red have always looked splendid on bays.

Another really lovely portrait, courtesy zoom + macro.  Remember those bi-eyes -- year 2000!

Photographing model tack of this level of detail, with actual sapphires and rubies, depends, in the end, on getting close enough.  The last shots of this post show much better just what AT3 looks like.  Here is the cape and forehead ornament.  Those tiny red rubies came from jewelled watch bearings.  What better fate!

Here is a close up view of the breastcollar center and noseband drop.  The center medallion has one sapphire that is lighter than the others.  The sapphires really do come in a variety of colors.

Here is a close up of the neckpieces.  Authentic Akhal Teke tack does not usually use two colors, so I had to make up how I was going to get "accents of ruby" on a sapphire set.  I chose to balance the tiny tips of the cape and face with the larger rubies of the breastcollar and neckpiece centers.  I think it worked.

What's next?
Again acknowledging amazing patience on the part of my customers, NaMoPaiMo is what comes next.  It seems that I really am programmed to paint a horse in three-quarters of a month.  I've never done a roan and almost never done dapples, so it will be an adventure.  Oh and I still have to get my Christmas letters out!!

But two things at once is better than my usual five.

Puzzles: The First Ten

SunsOut  1K  Reluctant for Progress

 I have been wanting to share just where our evenings have been going to ever since quarantine began.  The fall of 2019 saw my puzzle addiction finally under control and reintroduced:  Return of the Puzzle.  So it is not quite fair to say Covid made us do it.  We were already there.  But 2019 had seen the completion of 6 puzzles; 2018 had seen 2 finished, while 2017 also had 2.  In contrast (are you sitting down?!) the end of 2020 saw 42 puzzles completed.

Ravensburger  3000   Switzerland:  Castle Oberhofen on Lake Thuner 

Obviously a serious addiction.

As time went on, my family of 2 settled into very predictable behaviour.  The time to start (at first 9:00 pm, later 8:30); the music heard (Adrian von Zeigler's Celtic One); and the cloth covering during the day (protects against cheating, dust and sunlight and allows access to the bookshelves) all became standard.  The pattern crystallized into a jewel of together-time.  This precious interval, in the evening after dark, unflappable and cozy, became a rock for us, something sane in a world gone mad.  For a non-drinking couple it was a lot like going to an English pub.  Its very predictability became one of its most endearing characteristics.

Cobble Hill 1K  Shannon Falls, Eagle

Obviously this would not work without a large collection of puzzles.  Let me slip in a picture from the earlier blog post.  I stated in that post that the collection numbered 150.  I was wrong; it's closer to 115.

At the rate of 40 a year, we had enough for 3 years.  This is a lifetime collection, begun when I was a child.  It has been added to in waves over the years.  Part of my wish for this series of posts is to explore those waves.  At one point, a spreadsheet seemed the right way to document the collection (as I've done for my model horse blankets).  But all along, under my nose, week after week, I was accumulating photographs of done puzzles.  They would be very handy when, o god, o tempora o mores, I should ever have to choose to disperse my puzzles.

SunsOut  1K  Sunset at the Watering Hole

What happens when a puzzle is finished?  In the old days I'd leave them out for a minimum of 3 days, in order to fully enjoy the triumph, and photograph them.  Then I'd take them apart and back into the box they'd go.  Rarely, I'd write the date completed on the inside cover.  As 2020 wore on and our puzzle-doing became more consistent, polished and professional, I found the 3 days impossible to sustain.  It shrank to 2, then to however long it took me to shoot them and however soon I could bear to take them down... sometimes merely overnight.  I had to make space for the next puzzle.  There were a few times that board had three puzzles at once; more on that later.

Schmidt   1K  Neuschwanstein

It also seemed to me these posts could be a convenient listing for those puzzles I wished to get rid of Now.  What a great way to go through the collection and weed out objectionables.  For there were objectionables.  Starting in 2015 I'd gone on a great crusade against mold and rot.  Both puzzles and horses were affected by this terrible scourge which had gone on behind my back for who knows how long.  Five years later I am much more on top of the situation, believing it caused by moisture (now controlled by a basement air conditioner and 2 dehumidifiers) and exposure to air (now controlled by Ziplox and plastic sheeting, and, in the horses' case, by blankets and bags).  But some puzzles were damaged beyond repair.

And some puzzles I just didn't like.  The above Neuschwanstein is one of them:  too thin a cardboard for my taste, and too loose a cut.

MasterPieces  1K  And They're Off!

Naturally, many of the puzzles in my collection feature horses.  Stick with me for the entire 42 and you'll see most of these.  Meanwhile the factor controlling choice of next puzzle seems to be alternating between photos and drawings/paintings.  This has largely, although not completely, held true.

Casse Tete 550  The Golden Rule

Here I'm breaking my rule of one pic per puzzle in order to show details.  This is one of the more elderly in the collection, dating to the 1970s, and it has simply WORN.  Yet it still fits together very well and is much valued.

Detail of The Golden Rule

The collection started with Springboks.  These are my gold standard for sheer endurance of play and long-held value in the species, centering around the great Octagonals and Rounds of the 60s and 70s.  But then in the 90s we went to Denmark for sabbatical and discovered Ravensburgers.

Ravensburger 15000  Mountain Chalet

Today more than a third of my collection consists of Ravensburgers, for they, too, are a gold standard.

 This doesn't mean the puzzle world isn't filled with one-offs.  It is!  We found this lovely artwork in a gift store in an Audubon Nature Center (it was Beidler Forest in South Carolina) just a few years back, around 2017.  It features Charley Harper, the famous wildlife artist.  The puzzle was made by a company I'd never heard of and was of excellent quality.

Pomegranate   1K  Charley Harper

Gift stores are great places for puzzles.  We found this one at, of course, Horseshoe Curve National Historic Landmark.  If you live in Central Pennsylvania (and like trains at all) you gotta go!  The puzzle had been produced by (I only just now found this out) a German company and imported by a South American supplier.  Unfortunately, in the way of cheap souvenirs, this puzzle became one of the worst offenders in the entire collection in terms of mold.  Only one other is as bad.

Puzzletiele Verschluckbar   1K   Horseshoe Curve

This one is also up for grabs, and the rest of the pix are closeups of the damage.

Horseshoe Curve detail  1

Horseshoe Curve detail  2

Horseshoe Curve  detail 3

 A light swabbing with rubbing alcohol helps; I just haven't had the time to clean everything off.  I've learned the hard way to store all puzzle pieces in Ziplox.  Boxes themselves, if precious, are stored in large 2-gallon Ziplox.  We run the air conditioner all summer.  The damage has been stopped, and horses, puzzles and the piano can be reasonably free from this curse.

Surprisingly, model tack, except for a very few tiny spots, has never suffered from it.

A Two-Day Breastcollar

Last Friday and Saturday I pulled off a feat that hasn't happened in years:  A breastcollar was made in only 2 days.  My previous Akhal Teke breastcollars certainly took longer -- remember Brasenose's took an entire month!  This 2-day record is probably previously held by a braided bc back in the dim dark past,... but for now, I'm well pleased by what happens when I really just buckle down.  Very little computer and nothing else happened on Friday the 15th, and the following half day saw it finished.  "It's in me."

Only a few pix were taken during this marathon of concentration.  Here is the first shot, showing the general size and design of the breastcollar, and the buckle and strap.  I was up to the bezel stage at this point (the frames for the jewels).

The bar-shaped metal spots (iron-ons) were already made, and that was a huge help in making the 2-day possible.  But I still had to create all the square plates, cut all the bezels and curl them, and fit them to the plates.  What was new this time was that I tested each tiny circle of bezel to its individual plate's hole, BEFORE they were set (hot glued).  This seems so obvious now, but, I confess, 'twas not always.  I used to really struggle to get bezels to fit after plates were set, cutting and fussing and risking breaking through the leather.  This new way took more patience but went faster in the end.

A tackmaker is always investigating new materials, and I chose to use chamois as an extra layer of padding for the center medallion (or plate).  Having sharpened my knife to where it easily cut garment leather, I ran the risk of shaving too thin, and had to add back.

A stage I had temporarily forgotten about, with the setting of jewels, was the silvering of the holes.  Above you can see that the lower left (8 o'clock position) hole of the central medallion has had silver tape laid in its bottom.  This is to reflect the jewels' light and color.  The third photo (above) shows the silvering of two of the offside holes.

For reasons of reward I chose to hang the drops before the jewels were put in.  This turned out to be all I could do on one day.  Making the rings and hanging Rio Rondo's teeny findings was harder than I'd anticipated.  I made my rings too small at first.

Next day I tackled those rings with more understanding.  I make my own jump rings with a short bar of Aluminum tubing and a piece of stainless steel wire, in this case 24 ga.  Need I mention the work included sharpening my wire cutter... by hand... !!

When the jewels go in they do so in a rush.  It's a smelly process with clear nail polish as the adhesive.  I use Sally Hansen's Diamond Strength.  (There's a certain justice in the fact this polish has actual diamond in it.)  Each sapphire and ruby is chosen for color, clarity and fit.

While the above photo has been PhotoShopped, this one has not.

This shot is included to show the entirety of the tack.  I've left the straps long for the owner to trim as she sees fit.

Now for the fun part!  Alas, it is snowy and cold (and dark) outside, so we must be satisfied with indoor shots.

I have seven Lonesome Glories, but only two glossies, this dun and the black charcoal.  The charcoal is precious and too dark for comfortable tackmaking.  But the drawback to the dun is the white face -!!  Sometimes creative cropping is called for.

These photos show the real color, but it's even better in person.

I will end this post with an interesting photo of every piece and part of Teke tack that has been made so far, for the two Giveaway sets.  The light-colored leather ones include 2 neckpieces, the breastcollar, the cape (crown piece) and the reins.  The dark-colored reins are for AT4.  The unfinished neckpiece at lower left is the extra, made in the course of AT3's two.  Whoever is lucky at BeyerFest can choose the gemstones they want for it.

In future news:

Draw a deep breath people:  Time to push the reset button.

I would very much like to complete AT3, AND at least print out my much-belated Christmas letter, before I start NaMoPaiMo.  Those two are lined up for the remainder of January.  February will bring a combination of work on AT4 and Orlik, with a slight emphasis on the horse!  March will undoubtedly play catchup with finishing AT4 and working on a pair of small-scale harnesses.  

Beyond that, the only thing I'm seeing is a hazy wish to get back into braidwork... possibly another paintjob,... and whatever comes down the pike.  The faintest of wishes are manifesting themselves, as buds beneath the snow: working on my own belt (full scale braidwork), misc Trad headgear, misc harness and horse drawn vehicles (you don't think I could own a Troika and not make the sledge, do you...)!  Thanks go out to certain understanding customers, and encouragement to sculptresses and tackmakers.

Lost and Found

Two intensely personal gifts came home to me today.  Both were from women I admire greatly:  One is a dear friend who is my same age -- and the other is my own beloved mother.  Both gifts have been lost in the mail for much too long... and one of them has been lost for decades!  Mom's envelope of music (AZ) was postmarked December 17 --  my god, exactly a month ago -- while the box with the book in it (VA) was shipped December 21.  Since when does a package take 28 days to travel from VA to PA??  Yeah, they have 2 states in between them -- but it's WV and Maryland at their narrowest....

...while an envelope from Tucson to State College PA usually takes a week.

Part of the explanation is Christmas,... but there's so much more.  I admit, 4 days were added on to each mailpiece by our house decontamination procedures.  Even so, it does not take a rocket scientist to deduce that these items were dangerously close to being lost in the mail.  One of them, sheet music copies, was on the brink of being replaced; in this case, it would've been relatively easy to do again.  Mom is always sending me music.  She is my best source and she's been doing it ever since college.  Sheet music is replaceable, although my Mom's touch is so precious to me... especially now that she's become so frail.

But the book turned out to be dang-near irreplaceable.

It is a matter of debate when I lent that book to Eleanor.  The publish date is 1983.  I acquired it somewhere around 1989.  We tried to work out the lend date and came up with the late 1990s, somewhere between 1996 and 2002.  I remembered lending it but she did not, and it was subsequently lost to history (pardon the pun).  Years, decades went by, and I tried to replace the little paperback, but never could.  The only mentions of it online were scholarly tomes costing upwards of $170;  while I loved the subject, I couldn't justify such a price merely to satisfy one fading memory of a thin little paperback.

As previously mentioned, decontam is causing all my presents to arrive at once.  Eleanor had promised me the mini-me Smart Chic Olena/Smart N Shiney after I told her that I did not own, or desire, any of the mini-me Trads... and that I only collected palomino Stablemates.  It seems Breyer can find a loophole into even in the most defended collector's heart.

Although neither of these is strictly a Christmas present, (since I previously owned or had access to them), this feels like December 25 all over again.  Santa has been good to me.

Akhal Teke 3 Progress

One of the reasons progress has been slow on Akhal Teke presentation set #3 is that I made a mistake.  It is embarrassing to admit, but I didn't detect anything wrong until I reached the bezel stage of the second neckpiece  (which has 3 rows of spots instead of 2).  Without really thinking, I had made it the same length as the first neckpiece.  (The bases were pre-cut.)  A test-fasten revealed that its strap was just a wee bit short.  Oh the sorrow of that wee bit!  DUH, Lonesome Glory's (and every other horse's) neck gets larger the further down it goes, --- and one might just want the second neckpiece to be a bit longer.  Lesson learned!  Play with your tack, before during and after construction!!

Here is a close-up of No. 3's second neckpiece.  No PhotoShopping this time:  This is what it really looks like.

I could figure no way to make the first one longer without serious damage.  The strap (and buckle) is sewn in before the spots are hot-ironed on, so I'd have to peel some spots off to install a longer one, and all the spots are one-time use.  Worse, the neckpiece was the wrong color for AT #4; retrofitting it would mean more sacrifices of the existing jewel plates.  For reasons probably of pride (and possibly of profit), I chose to make a whole new neckpiece.   That is what you see here:  an entire second attempt.  It came out beautifully, thank heavens.

AT#'s pattern is four sapphires and a ruby in the middle, which shows up at the throat.  Here it is on a Lonesome Glory (this body is Goin For Gold, known in my herd as DunRovin):

And here are both neckpieces, a 2-row and a 3-row, for AT #3.  These two are adjusted to the middle of their ranges; their buckles are at the middle hole of their straps.  Although hard to see, note the dark brown Edge Cote;  in person it gives definition and heft, a nice touch for so light a leather color.

The first attempt will probably show up for sale or auction sometime around BreyerFest.

To my two oh-so-patient customers:  Your orders continue to be my first priority, getting the lion's share of my attention, even ahead of Orlik!  Thank you so much for your understanding.

Orlik, By a Nose

My NaMoPaiMo decision is still ongoing.  I have 4 pieces of tack to get through before I can pursue NMPM with a clean and free conscience.  I also have about sixty Christmas letters -- !!  Talk about too much to do...  And she thinks she can paint two horses in a month?!?  Methinks it will be a miracle if I get even one started.

But it's always like that.

I thought you might like to see the galley proofs of the latest Nudie Selfie photo shoot.  By now this pattern is nicely settled in:  This will be my fourth National Model Painting Month.  As is traditional, my husband takes my Nudie Selfies.  Also traditional, I'm standing in the TSII tack shop and pony room, a delightful place (if I say so).  What is Not traditional is the hat.  It's cold out there!!  Fear not, when it's warm again the Tilley will reappear... *

Above: uncropped.  Below, a different shot.  In this case,  Ziggy the carousel horse (behind my right elbow) is less visible.

 To round out the Orlik shots, here is a different perspective of the room.  This is the corner just to the right of the above shot:  The horsiest corner, where the two longest walls of shelves meet.

Why Orlik?

Because he's a bit more attainable, a little more do-able.  He's not a leap off the cliff into something I've never done.  Believe it or not, I'm still healing right now, spiritually if not physically.  I'm recovering from an awful year -- one whose terrors are not over for us, nor likely to be for a while.  Yes, I said I was ready for diversity.  Both dapples and roan will be new for me, although I'm not at all planning on a hair by hair...  :)  Orlik chose his color when I fell in love with this photo.

Another reason for choosing Orlik is the faint, although quite real, vision of a Troika.  I already have two similar horses finished, one with the neck turned --!!  I have long wanted to get back into harness... a 'failing' made apparent by my accepting a harness order...

Ziggy Stardust has not chosen his color to such a detailed depth yet, so that's why it's Orlik by a nose.  But this decision is not cast in stone:  Ziggy is not far behind.  He's closing in, on both a color and a name (gold-point Siamese)(Coney), and I was so comfortable with the idea of painting him that he got some Selfie Nudies too.

The smile is real.

I have not yet signed up for NaMoPaiMo.  But it's only a matter of time.  I thank in advance the tack customers and the letter-readers:  I appreciate your understanding.

* I name my hats.  The silver-and-rawhide Tilley broadbrim is named Coondoondah the 11th (this is an Australian aboriginal word meaning "hat").  The blue-and-purple tassel hat was called an Inca hat and this has rendered down in the family to "Inkerhat."