This is the story of one mecate, which I am already thinking of as my NaMo piece. It was finished on the 28th in a minor blaze of glory, and I am pleased with it. But it's an extra, -- a duplicate, -- turned out in the book process. I'm now taking offers on it, until Saturday night; details below. Its formal name is April 2 Mecate 1.
This is the first piece of tack the TSII is offering this year. I'm changing my mind about Peach Rose 2 and the future April 2 Hackamore; they may wait until BFest.
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| Showing 2024 on leather popper |
Twenty-five-&-a-half inches long from knot to thread-end, this handspun and hand-twisted mecate is made of embroidery floss and dental floss, plus a bit of leather and metal, and one braided thread button (7P6B with 2 rings). (The metal is wire inside the leather popper.) The tassel is multicolor. The blue is a deep blue, DMC 824, not so dark as navy but not sky blue either, more of an ultramarine. The popper is signed SBY and 2024. Hackamore (below) NOT included -- that's Duke's Hack which I'm using to display this mecate with --!
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| You are bidding on the Mecate only! |
Email me (sbytsii (at) verizon (dot) net, text me (814-470-7199), or pm me on FB with your offer. This mecate will close Saturday night March 2nd at 8pm Eastern. (That's a week before Daylight Savings, folks.) This closing date may be extended if I deem it necessary. If the amount climbs over $40 there will be no postage charged for domestic buyers. Overseas winners will need to pay postage separately. I accept PayPal and personal checks. You are offering for the mecate ONLY, not the hackamore, not the horse, not the girl,...! Check here for updates.
Current bid stands at: $100 bidder 1
Update: SOLD, Thank you so much C. P.!
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| Doll by Field of Dolls |
I originally meant to make a copy of April's Hackamore (April 2) during February, in a parallel effort with NaMoPaiMo [National Model Painting Month]. (I had made tack during the first NMPM in 2017 -- successfully.) What I actually finished this time was two mecates and a fiador: half the parts. Recall that, for the book, the making is closely and exhaustively documented, which takes inordinate amounts of time! The bosal will take longer, of that I'm sure, but the headstall should be swift. April's Hack, the 5th of the 8 pieces in my next book, is surprisingly simple. I love its color scheme of deep blue, black and white. It's another piece where I'm having to eat my words about not liking embroidery floss! Here Mecate 1 is draped over an obvious horse, the black-white-and-blue Emerson, Eclipse (Beau Soir in my herd). Don't think you can't just play!
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| Right after finishing |
The reasons I don't want to use this mecate for April 2 have to do with texture, visual contrast and length. The whole point of the book's pieces was to replicate an earlier piece; but it had been too long since I'd made a mecate and I re-invented how to prepare the strands, thus failing to match them to an earlier, easier phase of my skill. April's mecate has smooth strands. It had originally been made in 1996, then disassembled and re-spun in 2007. Here's a probably-inadequate pic:
I started out with the white strand and, dang, like the over-experienced rope-maker I am, I pre-spun it, combining the white dental floss with the white embroidery floss in two halves. This gave a rope-like texture, which April's didn't have. That should have been my first clue I was trying too hard for the situation. But I was blind and moved on to the black strand, which has a lovely blue trace around it. Here also I pre-spun the strand separately. The resulting rope-like strands not only changed the texture, it made the whole mecate shorter, a potential disaster.
These two pix show the details. It may not seem like such beautiful rope-work would be undesirable; but my goal was to replicate April's, made when I'd first learned to spin.
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| See the white strand's rope-like texture |
This next shot shows the making of this very Mecate 1. Both the white and the black/blue strand clearly show as 2-strand ropes. This also shows the braided-thread strand, a miniature attempt at a mecate's checkered strand. For Mecate 1 I put it in all wrong, resulting in (to my eye) a confused texture, without clear contrast of color.
There you have it: This sales piece was deemed a mistake merely because it was too advanced! Undoubtedly I'm being overly critical, as artists are apt to be. It's still a lovely piece and will be fine for someone else's uses. There are multitudes of models out there for whom a 25" mecate is just the right size!
Which brings us to the photo shoot.
My doll Chalif, by Anne Field, is my only Western handler in anything like blue.
Amazingly she stands up by herself! But put a girl on a horse, and no photographer can stop themselves from blazing away.
I particularly like the way she can bend her neck and move her gaze around.
Once again, this particular hackamore is Duke's and not April's. I needed a way to exhibit just a mecate and Duke's was handy. The shots show its length. Duke's Hackamore on its own is also in my next book. The book will cover four Bosal Hacks, of which April's falls second.
It is so much fun to be braiding again. April's black-white-&-blue bosal is up next!
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