Carrizozo's Hackamore: Begun

 

I appear doomed to constantly edit my blog posts even after publishing, at least for the first few days.  That is the case here, -- just worse than ever before.  I know there is a Preview function to blogs, and I do use it;  but the rush to post always feels so much stronger than my hard-earned wisdom about polishing.   Bear with me, and thank you for returning.

This hackamore will be for sale.  When it's finished, a sale venue will be announced, here (this post) and on my two FBs.  Currently [10.30] I'm thinking of taking bids privately;  if that fails, a straight sale will be used.  See the penultimate [second-to-last] paragraph for more details.  Meanwhile, enjoy an in-depth history of this piece.  :)

For my NaMoTackMo project of this year, in April, I made an orange and green bosal, inspired by all the fuss about the color olive (it does not take much research to figure out the source of that).  That bosal wound up being gifted to the rider in question.  I remained inspired by the color combo.

 I simply loved that bright neon orange.  Never mind that to get the thread into braid-able form I had to hand-spin two together; I'd done that many times in the past, to get special colors.  But this color was just, so,... exciting.  It harked back to all my buck fever years* and forward to my running races.  It had birdwatching in the fall memories going back decades.  It was a breath of fresh air.  I really did need that.

And then Breyer had to come out with all these small Traditional-scale horses.  Astrid was the first, although Dundee was really heading in that direction (oh, Harley D?).  Then this year we had both Elbe/Firefly and Nicholas.  (Today known as the Standing Quarter Horse Mare and the German Riding Pony, thank you IDYB!)  I confess I was shocked at first when Lynn Isenbarger blogged that Nicholas was the same size as the Pony of the Americas.  I conga the POA!  But I was very slow to unbox my Nicholas, so perhaps I deserved that shock.  Yet he is so beautiful I was inspired...  I came home from BreyerFest with Rapunzel, Elbe and Nicholas.  It took til October before their names coalesced.  (Separate rabbit hole:  Rapunzel is Salona, Elbe is Salorcha and the little golden German Riding Pony got stuck with a long one:  Carrizozo Sugarfire.)  

 By August I had done enough work on my next book to have spun off extra parts (above).  Recall that the book is about documenting and reproducing eight pieces of headgear, including golden oldies for whom no notes existed.  I had to find out by trial and error what their measurements had been;  and that's how these extras, mecate and fiador, came out too short for the standard Trad.  Small Trads anyone??

On August 30 I started spinning thread for another orange bosal, sized for my 3 new molds.  In all of September, only the above part got done.  'Hope springs eternal' that I could ever make tack on trips...!  Well, that part of this piece at least is well traveled!  The above nosebutton went from PA to AZ and back again...  crossing the Carrizozo Lava Field in New Mexico.  Future blog subject...

And then, in October, I was finally able to buckle down.

I had been focused on Rapunzel as the mold for this bosal (thus the unusual pose of the photo), but it became apparent that she wasn't the best bosal-making horse.  Her neck was too arched to comfortably work under.  I switched to Nicholas / Carrizozo.

Things went faster after this.  The upper sidebuttons were the biggest challenge because they were embedded, that is, woven into the ends of the 3B nosebutton.  That took a few passes, including taking out pre-existing cores!  There's no formula for single interweaves in a 3B;  it's mathematically impossible.  So how did I do them?  I cheated.  I passed under an extra third of each interweave ring around; and this extra thickness made an effective core.  To my pleased amazement, my normal Trad-scale lower sidebuttons (5P4B) and heel knot (8P5B) were acceptably in scale.

As of October 28, the bosal is finished, even to a metal concho on the end (an engraved pin). All that's needed is a hangar (I spell this the airplane way, having an ex-pilot in the family).  My vision is of a slit-braided single headstall, but for decoration, how about a braided ring at the off cheek?

My vision of the headstall is changing, especially after talking with a friend last night [10.30] (thank you Ann).  I now want a flat braid tasseled browband, as well as the ring in the offside cheek strap.  'Delicate' is the keynote here, for such small horses.  Such a vision will add days to the finish time.  Rumours of a short (4 day) trip are swirling in my family.  Make tack on trips??  Quiet chuckling choking laugh... but right now it seems reasonable to shoot for the second week in November for completion.  Thank you for your patience!

*I fell in love with deer in the early 90s, possibly as a counterbalance to overexposure [burnout] of horses.  "Hunting was next to horses in the bookstore" and I'd always loved antlers.  To my way of thinking, there is a vast difference between non-hunter and anti-hunter;  this distinction arose for me then.  Hopefully someday I'll publish my encounter with Crazy Legs, Pennsylvania's most famous elk.