The Conga Class

 

Last Saturday was the 28th-ever Happy Valley Fun Show, here in central Pennsylvania, and of the 33 classes, the 28th was congas.  We started this class last year, and liked it so much I had to include it again!  This post will feature all the entries in that class and also some views of the showhall.

While 12 entrants is the max that can fit in this rooom, 9 or 10 is much more comfy.  We had 9 this year.  This is what you see upon entering:

The arena table is at right, with a tablecloth (thoughtfully provided by the hotel;  this has not always been the case;  in the past I've used sheets).  I set up all the lights, and provide background music -- one of two aspects of this show of which I am absurdly proud.  The other is the string of brass sleighbells rung for class changes.  My string is Budweiser Clyde size:  That sound cuts through Anything!

Here is a view from the other side of the space, with the arena and prize/candy table on the left.  

Yes, those are the tiny donkeys on the lip of the near table.  Gotta bring my close-ups,...   In this next shot we can see participants starting to set out their larger-scale conga entries (back corner).   For anything like Trad scale horses, they must use their own tables.

Left to right:  K Mooney, K Swanger Grove, J Colgan, S Cindric, E Trigg

 Heavy hitters for the conga class included some Stone ISHs:

and a staggering number of Family Arabian Mares.  Kim told me one of them was from her childhood;  it was the same color, palomino, as was my own childhood FAM.

Not to be outdone, the venerable Lady Phase put in an appearance.  Unlike every other entry, this one had documentation.

I am so tickled and pleased by this near-favorite class.  They are ever fresh.  I put it near the end as a reward to the judge (myself);  to be honest, it is judged largely on the 'what I'd grab' principle.  Here is Kim catching the tiniest entries:  Stablemate Cantering Foals.  Did you know this mold was sculpted by Sarah Rose?

K Swanger Grove, A Tanner

 For the record, Anna's t-shirt says "Keep Calm and Collect Plastic Ponies."  Appropriate!

These tiny babies happen to be the winner of last year's conga class.  Like so many congas, in the interim it grew.  There are no duplications.  How do they do it!!  

 Thank you so much, each and every one, for supporting my and Kim's little backyard fun show.  Generous donations support this enterprise and they are so appreciated, but even more meaningful is that everyone had fun.

Starting a Pink Bosal Hackamore

 

While it is true I'm supposed to be working on two silver Parade sets, my Muse decided to keep pursuing braid projects after a recent bosal was completed.  I chose to let it.  A headgear piece is faster and more affordable than a saddle and, I confess, after the drouth of interest in braidwork after the book was finished (fall 2025), I was delighted to get some back.  Why pink though?  It's a color I've never done before.  It's associated with several high-profile hobby artists (Sassy's inspiratrix por ejemplo [for example] Tiffany P  😀).  Most inspiring, I had some fiercely neon-pink thread that easily stepped into the neon-orange niche of my tackmaking.

The beginning was a bosal core I'd had hanging around for who knows how long, though probably not more than a couple years.  This shot is the only one that shows the tails of the core;  one tail has a Breyer-box-source plasticized wire wrapped around it, proving supreme recycling. 

This is also the only shot that shows the thread colors with anything like truth.  Constantly as I work with this piece I'm confusing the neon-pink with neon-orange.  In contrast with the other colors, the pink blazes out so strongly there is no grasping its difference from orange.

The shot shows the bosal well-started, with nosebutton and all four sidebuttons complete.  As a matter of TSII history this bosal is quite unusual in that it got this far while on a road trip!  This never happens!!  Normally there is never time enough (nor space) to seriously make tack.  But my recent trip to Tucson had both.  I was staying with my father for a total of 6 days (half day plus 5 plus half day = 6 nights) and I had a room to myself.

 The view above shows a tiny table with my tackbox on it.  This small space, with a red-bordered pony pocket sitting where the actual tackmaking took place, proved to be enough.  A sharp-eyed viewer can spot Magia Pesca, my blue Remington, on the top shelf above.  Yes, he was with me on that trip, and yes, to no one's surprise, the hackamore will be made to fit Stone's Remington.  P. S. It will also fit Troubadour, Carrick and other larger Breyers.

Nothing is more wonderful for an artist than a room with two desks.  What one might assign as a more traditional, expected tackmaking space here went, instead, to the laptop.  The sage-green chair with the curly wooden legs is a true antique from my grandparents' house, dating back into the 1950s and quite possibly even earlier.

Balanced with playing piano duets, enjoying birding walks and just visiting, the bosal took shape.

Photo taken October 14.

The first step was hand-spinning the rose-pink thread (the middle color in photo 2) into a larger thread, a 3-ply.  This was used for braiding the nosebutton, a 3B.  Next, braiding in 2 colors of rings, red and white, the white actually being my wonderful linen thread (thank you Sue Rowe again).  But when it came to the neon, things got challenging.   I honestly don't think I've done a 4-color bosal before.  (Dry's was a 3.)  The crowding of the interweave rings in the center of the nosebutton caused some threads to get partially covered up, which turned out to be a good thing.  At the moment I'm not completely happy with the single neon ring there;  that situation may change.

This close-up shot tries to show the real colors, but fails.  At least it portrays the relationship between the different pinks.  The neon is the upper ring color on the lower sidebutton and the central ring on the upper.

 I got home and 2 days later the heel knot was on.  The below shows the first 3 of the 4 colors of the heel knot -- again, starting to crowd!

It wasn't until the 31st of October, 6 days later again, that the heel knot was finished.   In the old days I used to boast that the TSII could make a bosal in 3 days.  Alas, that is clearly not the case anymore!

Also alas, and also most clearly, I am still bedeviled by the problem of asymmetry in bosals!!

I can't believe this still happens --!!  But it does.  Look at those sides:  One is longer than the other.  (Most obvious in photo 1 of this post.)  Though I got the sidebuttons to where they didn't conflict with Remi's eyes, the heel knot centering just didn't get the attention it should've got.  Since there has been too much work put in to change (thus chooseth I), the bosal remains as it is:  crooked.  We'll say it has character.  But gee wiz.  Draw their attention, oh Remington head --!

On to the headstall.  I decided to make my own hardware.  Based on Dry's Orange Hackamore design, I needed only 2 brow conchos and 1 poll buckle.  I found 2 brow conchos I'd made back in 2011,... only waited 15 years for glory!,...  then sat down and cut out an oval of 22ga Argentium for the buckle. 

 This shot is a little confusing as to scale.  The 2 lower left spikes are needlenose plier jaws.  Going clockwise around the top, the upper left spike is a blunt awl;  the next 3 points are jewellers' files (2 rattails and 1 round); and the last spike, at about 5 o'clock position, is a large triangular broken-headed needle I use to drive holes in thin metal.  Which is how those holes got started in the buckle.

Below, the finished buckle, cut, filed and stamped to match the brow conchos.

 

 

Here's a close up. 

 

 My notes tell me the shanks on the Argentium conchos were sterling.

 

I have designed most of the headstall and the mecate at this point.  Just need to find the time.

 

Thanks for reading! 

The Saga of Remi 3

 

The story of Remi 3 has roots that go back to Sassy (Tawny), my Stone Holiday pre-order of 2024;  yet it extends on into the future for several months, possibly all the way to 2027.  His saga is really about my explorations of DAH, Stone's Design-A-Horse, and my attempts to twist joss or manipulate my fate.  It could be titled "Finding the edges of a dream."  I have been thinking about him for a long time.  If I risk diminishing the intensity of that dream by exposing it to the light of day, there might be something to gain from sharing and preserving.

 To start, here's Sassy.  She was ordered December 27, 2024, as a Holiday pre-order.  These pre-orders are similar to DAHs in that they're supposed to take several months to fill.

 She arrived June 5, 2025, taking five months and one week.  By then I had discovered my capacity to obsess was far greater than I'd realized.  No horse could measure up to my expectations!  My patience, famous in other places, had unfortunately not been able to handle the wait.  "There was crying."  Even more unfortunately, try though I might not to, I largely chose to cling to the more negative aspects of the experience.  I decided to revoke her individual name, Tawny, and keep her factory name.  Keeping the factory name is usually (though not always) indicative of second-class citizenship in my herd.  I thought she was too dark.  Of metallicism, which I valued very much, she had not a trace.  There were other problems.  In a fit of pique which lasted a year and a half, I promised myself I'd never order a DAH, "not until my heart heals."

Oh if only Stone had told me how long the wait would be!  It turned out they did.  I didn't see it until May.  But they'd estimated March.  If only their What's Happening page was updated more often than every 6 weeks or so!!  These were the two points my 5 months had boiled down to.

In the year and a month after Sassy arrived and up to BFest this year (2026), I purchased no less than 5 Stones.  During the course of 2025 I fell in love with the Irish Draft.  One's heart does have, after all, remarkable healing powers!  In December of that year I played with DAH seriously enough to nearly order one.  Barely 3 weeks after that, I snagged a near-solid bay Irish Draft on the secondary market, promising myself I'd etch him into a tobiano. As of this writing he has the socks.

I mention him to show that Remi 3 didn't come out of nowhere.  The similarity of his proposed coloring to this Irish Draft, whom I named Cookie Dough Fever (thank you Harshbarger's Restaurant for this name!), is noteworthy.  Here was a clue, which I didn't see until much later, that my heart leaned in the direction of a bay.

Advance to BreyerFest 2026.  The next stage was my ISO poster.  I have written elsewhere how I was astonished at its power.  Its results took me by surprise and furnished one of the great stories of this year's BFest.  The Loot Shoot   Only with the arrival of Rumherne Charlie (his current name), with deep reflection and the passage of time, have I seen its faults.  Here's the poster:

 And here's the chestnut Charlie:

How oh how could I want more than this splendid horse??!?  Indeed and truly he is a grail!  I am so happy with him -- I'm keeping him -- he is a once-in-a-lifetime prize, a OOAK and a fabulous find.  He and his brother, my blue Magia Pesca (Stone's Other Fish in the Sea), could demonstrate that, like my Half-Arab Mares, two should be enough.  In many cases of the Stone molds that I love, two is enough -- or even just one, --- like Cookie and many others.

But.  I have 3 ASBs.  But.  I have 4 Arab Foals.  But.  I have 9 Weanlings and 17 ISHs -- but ahem -- we're talking about Erin-era Stones, those aren't them, back off you nit!!  Okay, okay, I've got 2 Remingtons when most people have none, so why aren't they enough, pray tell?

Maggie Bennett, sculptress of Remington, holding my Pesca

Didn't I say there would be consequences?  Obsession is so powerful,... and so is the sheer pleasure of being able to play with the DAH designer.  Dragging back to the question of the faults of my ISO poster, what was the conclusion?  It helped shape my vision.  It shocked me with its strength!  But its real job was to refine:  to make me realize how unfinished and incomplete my wish was.  It wasn't refined enough.  After the arrival of Charlie I slowly realized that, however deeply privately and unmentionably, I still really wanted a bay.  Indeed, the first color mentioned was bay.

I might also reflect on the growing power of the conga as the hobby itself grows.  This way of looking at a model horse, showing many possible colors all at once, pushes one to choose more precisely which are their favorites, and exactly which ones might provide a suitable spectrum for one's individual collecting goals.  Seeing a conga can be a quite a shock.  It's a reality check.

All during the week of this year's BreyerFest, July 7 - 12, I was obsessively hunting just one horse.  I ultimately found 6 bay Remingtons.  Some I took pictures of.  Here's the first:

Stone name Edward Scissorhands

 In case you're wondering, yes that is the angle I saw him at.  I'm leaving these pix just as they were, not cropped or processed, to give the atmosphere of real hall-crawling and room-hunting.  "Too brown."  

 "Long mane."  I wanted the short.  

"Too pinto."  Quite a horse though!  This is evidence of an obsession:  to ignore the thousands on every side, and focus on just one face.

 I can rattle them off still:  Too brown, long mane, too pink, too much white (a pinto), the wrong sex (Mustang Sally was a mare), too flat of color shading (Ruby).  [Actually Ruby was found online shortly after BFest.]  In hindsight it's a wonder I found so many.  This really was obsession, on a ferocious scale:  That very first horse, Scissorhands, is arguably dang close to what I said I wanted.  He's glossy, beautifully shaded, his socks are close to Remi 3's, and you'd have to know I wasn't taken by his dappples, an unspoken shallow personal preference, to understand my refusal.  Remi 3 was not designed during the week of my hunting.  But I see now how all that focus was working towards him.  Sassy's influence is here:  The most amazing, alarming and long-lasting phenomenon of the whole saga was my own capacity to obsess.

 It was during the 4 days of suspense between Charlie's discovery and his purchase that I turned to DAH.  When I thought I'd lost him (how sensitive I was after BFest week!), it made me cry, broke my heart again and pushed me to seriously consider going where I'd said I wouldn't.  My dear husband reminded me about busy people and the seller returned with pix.  But the seed had been planted.

 An enabling factor was the knowledge that not every mold is offered every month.  Nor were my BFest funds unlimited.  Finding the short mane version still available in July, I took the plunge towards the end of that month.  This was, I kid you not, the 9th Stone I'd purchased since Sassy (and the 11th since Erin took the reins).  It would be followed in just seven days by another, a white unicorn foal, hah!

 And the saga continued.

With Remi 3's order went a most-carefully-composed letter.  Here is most of it:  

"Thank you for making this opportunity available to us.  For this bay Remington:   If it is at all possible, and/or if additional money would help,  I would like to request one blue eye (offside) and one brown.  If it is at all possible, and/or if additional money would help, I would like to request a layer of golden metallicism on this bay.

If it is at all possible, and/or if additional money would help,
Given the great success of the Bay 12 Ways Collection, and the examples it gives of your wonderful painters  :),
Is it possible for an individual customer to ask for a particular painter for a DAH?  I would like to request either Dawn Quick or Julie Keim, because to my eyes they are the best metallicism painters.
I would add that Alex Forman, Jess Hamill and Madi Wiseman would also be very welcome (based on Bay 12 Ways);  and that Ellen Robbins would be too, based on my collection of Remington pictures.  “They’re all good"
.....   .....

Note mine is not a favoritism request, but a search for metallicism."

Here are some of the Bay-12-Ways Harmonies that were inspiring me (photos from Stone):

Painted by Dawn Quick

Painted by Alex Fortman

Painted by Madi Wiseman

And here is the answer I received:

 "Our DAH models are only done with options offered, and they are painted by all our artists. Due to the number of DAH orders, it would take longer to do if we would allow extras."

Stymied.

Didn't I say "finding the edges of a dream"--?!  I was smack up against the realities of the program:  It could only stretch so far.  There was a limit to joss-twisting.  Never mind this was when there was evidence the time frame of a DAH was expanding to 6 or 8 months (9 is not unknown).  Never mind that, in cold hindsight, I clearly was asking too much.  Despite my denials, I was indeed asking for a lot of favoritism;  and that should not be allowed.  Yes, I was bribing them!  It is right and good to refuse bribing.  Yet it hurt that this rebuttal fell on the exact same day Erin was happily posting on FB about researching new metallic paints!...

There was a boundary I could not yet cross.  Acknowledge and accept the conditions.  The personality of my yet-unborn horse would thus be tempered;  just possibly, he would be the better for it.  Maybe others in the future would benefit from what surely could be a rising tide of demand for metallicism.

On to the saga's next chapter...

If I could not get the exact horse I dreampt of through these channels, I would create him myself, as best I could.  Not for nothing had NaMoPaiMo showed me the way.  Slow but sure, ideas had been born, blossomed, tested and proven.  Time would reveal their archival fitness;  for now, it was enough that they existed.  Ever since Pesca had arrived I had mulled over plans to add to him.  

Pesca/Other Fish in the Sea, with clear face

On Sept 10 I finally sat down with the PearlEx and the Triple Thick glaze, and started to bring my vision to life.  It took 3 days.

To my amazement, it worked.

 These photos don't show everything (the blaze is still clear) but they illustrate my vision.  I dare to think it's in the fashion and style of Stone.

 My ability to metallicize a horse, then, is not zero.  

Many thanks to M.C. who sold me this horse and encouraged me in his experiments; and to others, at the Tioga County show, who thought he was beautiful.

Bonus Shot:  This was originally slated for the Five White Foals post, but I came to think it would be better here.  It shows Pesca's color in an indoor setting, so the clearware and gold effects are a little more visible.  I know gold hooves are not the same as gold muscle layers, but we're celebrating the steps of creativity here.

 And you get to see Floriana with her dad.  :)

 ****************************

So what's next?  Over the time between this post's writing and its publishing, I've been dabbling in designing hackamores.  I would so like to make at least one sales bosal, if not an entire hackamore, before returning to the great silver Parade saddles.  Hopefully there will be time this fall to work on both.

Five White Foals

 

For over 50 years, from 1973 to 2024, my herd has had one white foal.  She reigned supreme, being the girlfriend of the King's son, Tesoro.  He was a charcoal as she was an alabaster FAF (Family Arab Foal).  Her beginnings are almost lost in the mists of history;  her registry card claims either 1972 or 1973.  My memories tell she was a replacement for an earlier alabaster FAF, named Snowy.  This name touches the deepest springs of my horse fever, being the title character of a series of books that were given to me and my sister in the 60s by Claire Sittler.  Mrs Sittler, a patient of my grandfather, Dr Bensema, was the person responsible, as near as I can determine, for my original infection with that fever.

Payasada, "She is like a clown," or Pie, was named after a phrase in one of my favorite books, Judy Van der Veer's Hold the Rein Free.  There was something about the eyes of this young filly that gave her exceptional character.  She was perfect for Tesoro.  The two of them settled down to an extremely long going-steady-hood, and things were stable for decades.  There is a blog post about their blankets:  Felts for Foals

In 1989 another white foal crept in, a Hartland.  I remember my herd struggling with the concept of separate-but-equal social castes.  The rise of Hartlands, from 1987 on through the early 2000s, paralleled my own late 20s through my early 40s, formative years.  Unfortuantely Spindrift never became a favorite, never got played with and barely developed any personality.  It's a pity.  He is the least of the five today.

In the late 90s and early 2000s the Stones started coming in.  King's Herd ultimately got 9 of the Weanlings, the only Stone foal molds that I wanted.  (I didn't consider the trotting Arab Filly to be a foal.  She was so expensive and I only wanted one color of her, finally managing to afford a Wedgewood in 2017.)  For the record, my first Weanling was acquired in 2002 and my last in 2008.  While none of these are white, some of them could pass as light-colored.  It is interesting looking at them as a group.  Future conga post, anyone?

A white foal seemed so desirable to me.  The animal is mythic.  It has reverberations of great purity, unicorn-like, and qualities of beauty and fragility which inspire one to protect it.  There may be a bit of denied motherhood in there too.  Smaller models were more handy for carrying around.  Although you'll never get me to admit it, there was a certain relief in not having to make tack for a model horse beyond a halter or blanket.  Oh, I was overdue for a white foal!  Pie had become ancient, delicate and too historic to risk breakage;  she could not compete, in detail or in finish, with the newer horses coming onto the market.  She simply had nothing that had not already been known for decades.

 

Here is a glimpse of something that might have to do with my valuing a white foal so much.  This is my basement wall.  I did all the paint-by-numbers (total 5), in the 1970s.

 

Buck & horse drawing by Kim Swanger Grove

 The white foal was done last, probably in the early 80s, and is the only painting to have a name, Pale Guy.

 

In 2022 the Vintage Club put out its 3 mare-and-foal sets, Poppy and Ollie, on the Andalusian Mare and Foal molds, in bay, palomino and white (alabaster).  Except it wasn't white.  It was supposed to be a Perlino.  I first saw this foal while judging my little backyard show in November of 2023.  All I know is I fell hard!  It was the iridescence.  I'd never seen anything like that on a Breyer.  The colt won the class, big surprise! and I was off on a long trek to collect this desirable creature.  

 

 

But the Perlino proved quite difficult to separate from its mother.  No one was willing to break up the set.  In the end not even I was!  That was a real surprise, when I'd already planned out who the mother and father would be.  My Uffington, Albedo, was obviously the father.  It was more difficult to settle on a mother;  at one point, there was a black and white pinto in the running!  Eventually a Cremello mare, the Girls Rule the World beauty (2024) became the obvious choice,... but this was for Zehatan the unicorn.  I didn't get the Perlino mare and foal until BreyerFest 2025.  

 

Note shoulder color is from a shadow

  

I had long since named the foal -- Shoni, after the author of the horsehair hitching book -- but her arrival was not what it could have been.  Her eyes were blobby, without much expression.  The much-vaunted color was barely iridescent and strangely green, almost the color of mould.  What to do with the mare?  She eventually was solved by pairing with Cosimo the black Murguese.  But Shoni had been upstaged;  she hasn't yet emerged from that shadow.

In September 2024 a foal appeared that supplied what I had wanted, though the realization grew slowly.  This was Breyer's Rigel, my first unicorn. I had long admired the color of Rosalind & Rigel (2022 issue), the pearly-pink unicorn mare and foal;  but how to get just the foal?  Finding one online with a barrel rub solved that.  Scratches didn't matter to me!  Save a buck!!  Thank you Devon Frinzi!  In a happy hour I named him Zehatan, after one of the worlds in the Expanse sci-fi series.  (There were 1373 worlds, though not all named!)  Zehatan has his own blog post:  A Minor Miracle

 

While I'm not advocating that a horse break himself in order to get my attention, it's true that this adventure caused me to really bond with him.  I love this most beautiful model, iridescent and with glorious color. He's not exactly white, but he clearly belongs in the category of magical white foals.  Zehatan, Albedo and the cremello mare Kiss Away all belonged together, with their pearlescent finish and blue eyes.  Palomino Insatiety

 

Members of 3 different families, grouped by color

And then, 2 years later, came Floriana.

Riding on the wave of my Stone emphasis and obsession, she came to my attention right when I was thinking about a fourth Stone Arab foal.  I dared seek a white one;  I already had acquired a baby black, a redgold pinto and a brown appy, these colors covering the spectrum of my desires.  At least for now. 

  

 

Floriana was being sold to raise funds for a cancer victim.  I was a cancer survivor myself.  The seller made haste to show me her broken and missing flowers.  Those only made me want her more, and the price reduction didn't hurt!  Floriana was my 12th Stone purchase since Erin took the reins:  a dozen horses in less than 3 years (Jan 2024 to Sept 2026).  In the 13 years previous to Erin I'd gotten only 3 Stones.  

Floriana arrived in late July 2026.  She has gone through several arrangements of her flowers.  Trust a unicorn to associate with gold (the gold wire was for the tack shop):

 

Within a few days I'd carefully peeled off the forehead flower and moved it to the gap at the top of the neck.  This arrangement (below) lasted for a couple of weeks.  The original adhesive had become weak and rubbery and could be peeled off;  the surface beneath was unmarked.  I also re-glued the next flower down, since it was equally unstable.  I used Triple Thick Glaze for the new places:  that dried hard and strong.  Of course only time will tell whether it will last for years and years, but I have hopes.

 

Ultimately I chose to move the small yellow flower to the top of the neck.  Not only did that harmonize with the horn, it left the largest flower lowest, satisfying my artistic sense of balance.  [Note from the future:  I have since re-glued the 2 lowest flowers also.  Traveling in a pony pocket proved too much for them;  but since their adhesive was strong enough to cling to the lining, thank heavens they didn't get lost!]

 

I love Floriana out of all proportion.  Here is a charming animal.  She is quietly pearlescent.  She easily became friends with Zehatan.  She has customizations few Stones in my herd have.  She even has cloven hooves!  A case of slightly curled legs was taken care of during corn season.  Straightening a Foal   She is regal, lovely and charming as a princess should be.  In a twist only my model horses can do, Floriana chose Magia Pesca, my blue Remington, as her father.  (You will be hearing more about Pesca later!)  Of my 4 Stone Arab foals, only Graf had bonded with his father faster.  

 

Floriana keeps her Stone name, because it fits her perfectly.  As of this writing I am carefully dreaming up her mother.  Harmony mold, pearlescent white with translucent metallic blue points and shadings, gold hooves and highlights and,...  She needs no horn, though I could never convince the world of that.  Magic does not need a horn, only love.

And metallicism.