Carrizozo's Hackamore: Finished

 

Finished!  Carrizozo's Hackamore began August 30 with the spinning of some orange thread.  The piece went through a lot of adventure!  I feel it barely squeaked under the wire of my determination to complete it by the end of this week (Nov 12).  The good news is that in the final days, it helped shift and break up my next book logjam.  That tiny knot at the throat, the Fiador Knot?  I'd had my drawing wrong!!  This hackamore gave me the opportunity to get it right.  Thank you for your patience.

UP FOR AUCTION.   Listed on Model Horse Place.  Buyer pays shipping, estimated at $12.  Closes Friday the 18th, around 7:15pm Eastern.  Good luck, thanks for reading!

 Model Horse Place: Carrizozo's Hackamore

The photo session was long, and included 4 horses of what turned out to be two different scales.  I found out for sure that this hackamore, for all that they are very adjustable and that I'd intended it for Rapunzel and Elbe, really was best fitted to the smaller Nikolas and his equal, the Pony of the Americas.

Here's proof.  Elbe/Firefly manages to fit in by holding her breath.  See how tight the bosal is around her muzzle, how high up the browband is and how short the fiador ends are?  Needlenose pliers are a must-have to tie them.

Another problem is the off side.  The braided ring likes to ride up and touch the eye, something I detest.

Nonetheless she looks a proper Western mare in it.  The overall detail is good.  And the color---!!  

I couldn't help having fun with this girl, Rapunzel/Astrid, even though she is the same scale as Elbe and this hackamore was a bit tight on her.  (I could barely tie those fiador ends:  Me!)  I know, these photos don't give an accurate color.  In this whole post, the POA is the closest to the truth.  But this pony was irresistible.

I was particularly pleased with this portrait.  Doesn't she look sassy!

Finding a saddle for Nikolas was one of those activities that proves I certainly could live-show if I wanted; I just haven't done so for years and years.  I spent a long time pawing around, pulling a blanket from here, a cinch from there.  In the end the saddle didn't show much and the cinch not at all.  But it worked; the bright colors of the blanket subtly influenced the pix, and the horse did the rest.

Wouldn't this headgear look great on the Nikolas remake that Amanda Brock, of Rogue Horse Studios, just posted the sale of?...?

The real win came when I put this piece on Kandinsky, the little golden Appaloosa Pony of the Americas. 

I conga the POA.  I could as easily have put it on the original bay.  The more contemporary mane and the delightful detail of his color drew me to this underappreciated pony.  To my amazement, my camera did not turn everything overpoweringly yellow and saturated red; it showed him in his true colors.  Oooh lah lah, at last I had found the right model!

That expression!

This, then, was the proper 'opening shot,' the memorable one, that should be used for the auction link.

Here's the obligatory 'laid out' shots.  Believe it or not, the ends of the fiador are tied Wall knots.

And here's the equally-obligatory list of previous posts on this hackamore:

Carrizozo's Hackamore Begun

Carrizozo's Hackamore: Developments 

The making of this hackamore paralleled the real start of retirement for my family, quite a change.  The piece has gone on a pair of trips, one to AZ and one to NY.  It has been a bridge between working on my next book, stopping, and starting again.  This hackamore represents the first time I've tried braiding in this unusual scale between Trad (1:9) and Classic (1:12).  Carrizozo's proves to me that even while working on a dream book, it is necessary to sometimes go back to a simpler phase of just-make-it...  It also proves (as if one didn't know!) that having interested buyers means more than I care to admit.  :)  The pandemic is not over over here, and that is as hard as ever...  Sometimes I feel I'll be eighty for the next twenty years.  :(  My beloved hobby is a doorway into another world.  While I miss you all more than I can say, I am so very grateful for what I do have. 

This hackamore fought hard, and still feels a bit like something needs-to-be-fixed.  If the winner has the same opinion, they should get in touch with me.