Of course I didn't driving 32 miles to buy fabric

      I love fabric. And glitter and bling and other shiny things. I know I have said that before, it's still true. I also have *plenty* of fabric. That doesn't mean I don't want to buy more. And Sunday Travis and I took a road trip to Joann's in Manchester, CT, to see if I could find fabric that I didn't have locally. I have been in that Joann's before, I am sure, but not in a long time. I had forgotten how ginormous it is. Row after row of fabric and trim and other random things I have never seen in another Joann's. It was magical. And I quickly, and easily, filled up a cart with things that I had never seen before. Or at least I don't remember seeing them. And obviously I "needed" all of them. At least that was what I told myself when I bought them. I did get another colorway of the glitter velvet, Maire should be happy about that. I have now seen it in purple, black and green. Maybe no other colors exist. Anyway, I should not need to buy fabric for awhile. But let's be honest, I didn't NEED to buy this stuff, I just wanted it. 

     For fun, here is a pic of the only Corbett saddle I have managed to add to my collection to date. I have had it for a bit and not actually used it yet. I am sure I will sooner or later. I figured it could come out to get some photos I needed. Someone wanted to see one of my saddle pads on a horse. And now I possess that photo. It also reminds me I should find the bag of fabric I got from Spoonflower and get back to cutting out saddle pads. And maybe make some more. Maybe. I'll add it to the list.

     Part of the idea of going to Joann's in Manchester was to swing back through Winsor and check out Price Chopper and see if they had any Rebel ice cream in stock. If they did, I would buy some. If they didn't, I guess I didn't get any ice cream. Well, they had some. And I bought all of it. Which was only 6 pints, but it's still sort of funny that I cleared out their entire stock. It's good ice cream. And I had to drive 40 minutes from my house to buy it so it makes sense to buy a lot. 
     The other day I got some quick photos of my stock that I have left from Breyerfest and I got them posted in a couple of places. I forgot that I was almost out of the priority boxes I use to ship dolls. Oops. So I just took care of ordering some more of those. I wish my local post office still carried that particular size. Not that it is not convenient to have them come to my door, but I have to remember when I am low on them as they take a bit to arrive. Anyway, there are days when I sort of like packing things for shipping. And then there are days when I really wish the boxes would pack themselves. 
     I have a show coming up in less than 3 weeks and I feel like I should work on my entries. At least figure out what I want to show. But I still have time, right?

My sister-cousin-friend

     I have been friends with Joan Yount for about 13 years. The only reason I know that so clearly is we became friends shortly after we both started making dolls. Which is also a weird story. I was hosting a mail-in photo show series and I ended up emailing Joan about her entry. And we got to chatting and discovered that we had both fairly recently started making dolls. We could never quite figure out which of us started first, but the both of us started within a month of each other. How weird is that?

     And speaking of weird, Joan is weird. She is my kind of weird, which is why I love her so much! She is never judgy or mean and she is just an amazing person. We have a lot of things in common besides just both being doll makers. Which, that is weird enough. The picture below was one Joan sent me a few days ago. She decided she needed to go for a ride in a small airplane. Just the idea of it scared the crap out of me but she said it was amazing. AND she told me she is sort of afraid of heights! How is she so awesome? I just love this photo, Joan looks so thrilled. 

     Joan and I have been in pretty much daily contact for over a decade. We talk about doll stuff, life stuff, kid stuff, though that part is funny because Joan's twins are just a year younger than I am. She hears all the cool new stuff that Travis does and so on and so on. Sometimes we are incredibly boring, on those days our emails might be shorter, but we always keep in contact. And if we don't have time to email, because life does get busy, we will send a text. Which usually is something along the lines of "I'm not dead, just crazy busy". I asked Joan if I could put her in my blog and use the plane photo and she said I could use any photos I wanted. So I went back through text messages to see what I had.
    This was the first pic Joan got of her newest horse, Tally. She was leasing him when her horse Buddy had a small leg injury that needed rest time to heal. Then when Tally's owner decided that she was moving, Joan bought Tally so he could stay with her forever. This horse is going to have a good life. Those horses are very well cared for. All the animals that live with Joan are lucky animals. 

      Tally is so tall! That is Mandy, Joan's daughter riding on Tally and Gracie, Joan's neighbor is on Scout on the left. I am as always a little bit jealous. And when I get texts like this I think about the last time I was on a horse and, again, realise it has been about a decade. And when I say this to Joan she says we need to fix that. Too bad she lives halfway across the country. 

     As pretty much everyone in the hobby knows, Joan Yount is an incredibly talented doll maker. And she, like me, often gets some unusual doll orders. One day she sent me this photo of a princess she made with a comment that now she really wanted a princess doll. Well poop, now so do I!

     Joan has been such a good friend to me for a very long time. She has helped me through some really tough times. She listens, doesn't judge and knows when to be sympathetic and when I need just a little bit of humor. There was a day when I was ugly-crying at track practice because of an insensitive comment about liability and Joan sent me this picture of her dog, Boomer, and said now THIS is a liability! I hear a lot of stories about Boomer. He sounds like he has quite the personality. And he's really cute!

     A really fantastic, and sometimes challenging, part of Joan and my friendship is that we work together. Obviously not in any regular sense of the word since we do live almost 900 miles apart. But we collaborate on patterns and doll tricks. Sometimes we just send pictures back and forth to get an extra set of eyes to check on things. I got this amusing photo when Joan was designing a saddle pattern. She wanted an opinion on the fit for the Yvonne/Gracie/Quinn doll. I think it's quite nice. And it reminds me again that Joan is incredibly talented at many aspects of model horse hobby stuff. She is a super skilled doll maker, she can make all types of tack and she paints horses as well. She has also done haired models! It is always fun to see what she is working on. And when she or I gets a super tricky doll order we will often ask each other for help. Two heads are better than one after all. 

     I found this gem in our texts from when I was working on Jackie's Link doll. I had tried sculpting them out of super sculpy, but since that needs to be baked, and the head is vinyl, I was cooking it with a close-up hair dryer. Which did work, but the ears were very brittle. I mentioned my need to make elf ears to Joan and she said she had done some in the past and they were out of tooling leather and painted. In case you can't read the text it says:

Me: OMG, I love you so much! You are the best! (heart emoji)
Joan: The ears?
Me: (photo of elf head with ears) They are basically perfect! The style of the hair will hide the join and they are close enough in color I probably can just leave them unpainted.

While we had been talking off and on about the doll process and the details, my first message was not directly following any conversation. Joan just knew what I was talking about. When we work through a difficult dolling problem, alone or together, both of us get excited about it. 

     Sadly, Joan and I have never met in person and I am not sure when, or if, that will ever happen. We keep in contact and "chat" throughout the day through emails and often texts. Sometimes things are too complex, weird or important and we have to just call. I got a call from her the day she broke her wrist. She started with "remember how we always say boring is good? Today was NOT boring" and she told me about Buddy spooking a bit and wracking her with his big butt and her hitting the ground just wrong. That super sucked. I wished I was a lot closer to Indiana so I could help her with doll things. Though I think I mentioned Joan is amazing and even in a cast I am pretty sure she was back to making dolls within a week. I might be imagining that, it may have been a bit longer. 
    Collectively Joan and I have a ridiculous amount of sewing and dolling experience and have literally made thousands of dolls. Some of them are average and some of them are anything but average. Some of our conversations are routine and boring and sometimes we have issues, doll related and not, that we help each other through. It's very interesting having a close friend that is so far away. I know there are a bunch of people in the hobby that have that same situation. But while I have never been in the same room with Joan she is a good friend and basically family. And I am glad that way back over a decade ago she entered my photo show and we got to talking. 

Breyerfest Dolls and Accessories

     Ready? I picked up the dolls and doll accessories that were left from Breyerfest and I figured I would bring them out and do a quick and dirty photo shoot. No glamor shots (let's be honest, I almost never take nice photos, lol) but almost all the dolls are at least on a horse. He needs to be painted but that hasn't happened yet. I am thinking of doing that myself. I don't even know if I can paint that big. But maybe I will find out. Anyway, all of the male bodies are on the Type S male doll that may have a different name now. It is a Mego style body but with good joints. The ladies are mostly on dolls from KC's Galloping Gals. There is the Gracie doll (tanned skin tone) and the Quinn doll (pale skin tone). A few of them are Yvonne bodies but with the upper portion being from a Gracie with a Gracie head. I don't know which have the Yvonne bodies, I don't remember. So I will give a quick description of each of the dolls, the price and if anyone wants anything, send me an email: fieldofdolls@gmail.com. Shipping is $10 on dolls (up to 3) and the small stuff can ship for $3

Gracie body western pleasure doll. Dark brown hair, aqua shirt with tan chaps. $200

Cross country rider. Quinn body, dark brown hair. Red vest, watch and armband.  $200

Mens chinks. Brown with caramel yoke(SOLD) or sand with dark brown yoke. $30 each

Hut seat rider, Gracie body with dark brown hair. Pink shirt, black coat. $200

Cowboy #1 SOLD
Cowboy #1 SOLD Cowboy #2. brown shirt, bearded head, removable cutting chaps. comes with choice of black or white hat (I accidentally left that at home for Breyerfest. Oops) $200
Cowboy#3 red plaid shirt, no beard, removable cutting chaps. $200

Saddle seat rider. Has removable coat so she can do in-hand showing. Blond hair, done on the Gracie body. $200

Casual/working western lady. Quinn body with light reddish brown hair. Green shirt and removable cutting chaps. $200

A variety of saddle pads. Some super cute custom printed fabrics! $15 each 

Youth hunt seat doll. White shirt, navy coat, red hair. $200

Cross country kits. includes vest with attached pinny, armband and stopwatch. $30 each. Pink is SOLD

Lower level dressage/jumper doll. Navy coat. Gracie body with dark brown hair. SOLD

Cross country rider. Gracie body with ginger hair. Black vest, watch, armband. SOLD

Ladies cutting chaps; black, sand with black yoke, sand with dark brown yoke, dark brown with sand yoke. $30 each

Lower level dressage/jumper doll. Black coat, done on the Gracie body with ginger hair. $200

Dirty working cowboys. Both have worn jeans and dirt/dust stains on everything they are wearing. Cowboy #1 has no beard and removable cutting chaps. Cowboy #2 has a beard and removable chinks. $200 each. 

Royal blue Western pleasure rider. Gracie body with dark brown (maybe black) hair. SOLD

Side saddle rider. Can even sit side saddle bareback! Quinn body, has a black habit and brown gloves. 

mens cutting chaps. Black, tan with caramel yoke, dark brown with black yoke. $30 each Black and brown are SOLD.

Casual/working western lady. Gracie body with blond hair. Pink plaid shirt with removable dark brown cutting chaps. $200

Doll sized tote bags. I made a whole bunch of these years ago. I hope you get the reference on these. These are free with any purchase from this post, just tell me which you want!

     Hopefully you made it this far and found something that interests you. If not, my books are always open for custom orders and I can't always think of something random I want to make. Just let me know what you need. 

Breyerfest Swag

    Unless this is your first day here, you know that my Breyerfest FOMO was pretty bad this year. There was a bit of retail therapy before Breyerfest and a bit more at the Brimfield flea market. I've got a trade worked out with my friend Pat so I can get a Breyerfest SR (dammit Breyer, I am not an OF collector! Stop making me want things!) and the crystal horse to add to my collection. I did reasonably well not spending a whole bunch of money. Which I feel is at least a bit impressive since almost everything was posted on line and I had a lot of friends at Breyerfest, many of who I could probably have asked to pick things up for me. So good for me and not spending too much money! 
     So other than the whole experience of being in the same place as so many friends (many of them I have never actually met in the real world) I think the thing I most feel I missed out on was Breyerfest swag. There were SO many stickers available! I have a little kid love of stickers and have them decorating my doll order binder, my low carb recipe binder and if I ever run out of room on those I will start to decorate my school stuff as well. I really wanted to ask people to get me stickers. But I didn't want to ask more people to do more things for me. I need to just go to Breyerfest and get my own swag. Some day. I have a plan. Anyway, I got a super cool Mares in Black hat. Jackie told me Heather said I needed it. How did she know? I actually wore it on the way home from New Jersey. It was helping me keep my hair from flying into my eyes. Ponytails are not enough and Travis LOVES having all the car windows open. Plus it is a super cool hat and I adore it! I feel (and have felt for a bit) that I need a Mares in Black T-shirt. I was going to order one but saw the black ones were out of stock (when I went to order, I have no clue now). So it's on my must-have list. So many things. Plus it's a shirt I can wear to school, which is a bonus. 

     I also bought this Sprat from Jackie. While we were talking in circles about Breyerfest, hobby stuff, back to Breyerfest (seriously, if you have never had a conversation with me you have no idea how I talk in circles) and we ended up talking about the hobby monthly clubs. Like how Enterprise Props had the stablecrates for a bit (I won one once!) and I mentioned I did Maggie's Monthly Micros for a bit but decided I needed to stop spending money. Jackie mentioned how she loves the club (who doesn't, it's awesome and I consider rejoining all the time) but that she doesn't necessarily NEED every one of them. And I found out one she didn't need was Sprat. Sprat is one I have been casually searching for so I made a "Breyerfest impulse buy" and got myself a tiny mule. Which is good since apparently micro mini is the scale I can paint in. But yeah, one of the other things I said I missed about not being at Breyerfest was the availability of things that you just don't see anywhere else. Like a variety of sold out micros, props that you rarely or never see and so on and so on. I definitely need to go to Breyerfest for the experience, the selling opportunities and the shopping. It's just a good idea. 

     I dropped off my sewing machine for a tune-up and it only felt a little like dropping my kid off for the first day of kindergarten. I felt like the woman at the store was judging me, maybe on my appearance, maybe because I told her I have had the machine for probably 10 years and never had it serviced, hard to say. I didn't quite want to leave though. Plus it was a sewing store. But I don't need a new sewing machine, I need my old one to work better. Which hopefully in a week, two weeks tops (please don't keep my machine longer!) it will. For now I still have 3 outfits sewn and ready to put on dolls. I can also work on cutting out new outfits, hairing heads, painting faces and maybe working on a costume. I am sort of toying with the idea of doing a doll and costume. Maybe for me. Maybe for sale. But I happen to be in possession of doll scale chainmail (it's fabric. Totally looks like chainmail though) and I have ideas. Or I can do stuff with leather. Or I can sit around watching Netflix and eating ice cream. Hard to say what I might do. Definitely though I think I should plan some more road trips to visit people that are close enough to drive to. I don't have to go back to school for another month. I have time. 

Connecticut is broken

     Yesterday I drove a lot. Or that is sort of what it feels like. Jackie actually lives a bit closer to me than Maire does, but all of Connecticut seems to be under construction, so I had a lot of slow-downs on the way down to Jackie's house. It's actually sort of funny to see a speed limit sign that says minimum speed 40 mph when you are going 12 mph max. At least I am easily amused and don't seem to be having any issues with long drives these days. Good times.
     I think Travis and I were in Port Chester, NY when I saw this train. Finally, after many trips to and through New York, I caught a picture of a train. Red lights ARE good for something! Again, it's probably a good thing I am so easily amused. 

     Part of my goal while driving down to Jackie's place was to see if I could avoid the George Washington bridge and take the Tappan Zee. Sadly, none of my GPSs likes Tappan Zee as a destination. I did see in a comment that on Waze you can sort of choose your route. That sounds kind of fun. But my wonky GPS is part of my adventure. I will get where I mean to go eventually, but it will be VERY interesting on the way there! Anyway, Jackie came me a route that would bring me to Tappan Zee and I saw route 84 (first road I was aiming for) when I was near Hartford but it was east/west not north/south. And I didn't know which way to go so I stayed on 91 and then got on 95 eventually. I have gone that way for almost every trip to New York and New Jersey this year (admittedly, that is only 4 trips total) so the road is becoming a little bit familiar. To keep things interesting my GPS decided I needed to get off of 95 and take CT-15 for 42 miles. I said sure and got on CT-15 and about 10 miles in the GPS says just kidding (it actually said recalculating) and sent me back to 95. It made me laugh anyway. I figured out later that it was trying to keep me out of heavy traffic. Losing battle GPS, all of Connecticut is broken. Unlike Massachusetts, Connecticut is being repaired. OR Connecticut is paying people to stand in the road and block things and slow down traffic. From what I saw, that is a likely scenario. And Massachusetts is also under construction, just not on every single highway I needed to be on. 

      Since I could not put the Tappan Zee as a destination, or even a waypoint, I was just sort of hoping that I would get there. Since I don't know where I am going I need to follow the GPS at least for the most part. I do also know how to read a sign though. This was an easy one since the GPS did want to bring me to the bridge. And everyone else in New York wanted to be on the bridge as well. 

     Eventually we got there. And I managed to get another cool bridge picture. I think I am starting a collection of those. I didn't have to take the George Washington bridge and I didn't have to drive in New York City. The traffic made the trip longer than it should have been by more than an hour, but eventually Travis and I got to Jackie's house. 

     It occured to me on the drive down that I have probably not seen Jackie in about 3 years. I am very grateful for social media since it makes it seem a bit more like you are "seeing" your friends, even when you are not. And while that is a great thing, I have missed being in the same room as Jackie. We ended up doing nothing but sitting around talking and snacking all day. It was amazing. Though there is some weird thing with time at Jackie's house. I checked the time at one point and it was 3:15. About 5 minutes later I checked the time and it was 6:15, what's up with that? 

     Even though the time went by way too quickly, I had an excellent time hanging out with Jackie. Maire came over for a bit after work and I pushed our stay until about 8:00 so I could visit with her too. I usually try to get home by about 9:00 or 9:30 (because I go to bed at 9:00 since I have to get up at 5:00 all through the school year) but I was having such a great time and didn't want to leave. I also had the thought that waiting until later might give me less traffic to deal with. How silly of me. 

   

     On the way home my GPS decided that I had not had enough adventures. So it sent me to the George Washington bridge. Poop. The traffic was relatively light though and I got through that easily. Apparently too easily. I was then sent through NYC. At night. I may have been in the Bronx, it's not entirely clear. It was entirely clear that no one cares at all for traffic laws wherever I was. So much honking, and I think very little of it was actually at me. Anyway, sooner or later I got out of whatever piece of NYC I was in, found whatever highway the GPS wanted me to find and seemed to get to Connecticut faster than I thought was possible. I got sent to the Merritt Parkway (CT-15N) and decided that it was a very nice road and very comfortable to drive on. Especially at night. I don't love driving at night because the roads are usually too dark and the oncoming traffic and headlights in my rearview mirror are sort of blinding, and at the very least, not comfortable. Though I have fewer issues with my Escape than I did with my Neon. I am a lot higher up in the Escape. Anyway, the universe heard my thoughts about how the road was fairly comfortable to drive on and decided we would stop driving all together. There was a ton of construction and the 3 lane road was knocked down to 1 lane. And people were driving insanely slowly in the one lane because they were... looking at the construction lights? Not sure. It's also fun to note that I did not see a single workman actually doing anything. They were all just sitting around. What a nice job that must be. It was a nice night to be sitting around outside. 

     My GPS tried very hard to save me from sitting in traffic. It was actually telling me it was recalculating because of severe traffic ahead. One time I didn't listen to it and I stayed on 91N. And I crawled through several miles of traffic. After that I listened to it's random directions. It's all part of the adventure after all. 
     When I was leaving Jackie's house my ETA for getting home was 10:45, which I thought was decent. We actually got home at 12:30ish. Less decent, but we made it. We passed a ton of construction and a car fire (the cleanup from it. Huddle of firetrucks and the debris cleanup). Other than having to drive slowly (or stop) many times, it was a very uneventful trip. Travis actually loves being in the car so he had a good time. I had an excellent day hanging out, though it was far too short. Jackie and I talked a lot about Breyerfest and all sorts of everything else and now I am not entirely sure what day it is. I THINK it might be Saturday but who knows really. I need to get my butt in gear and ship the purple doll and bring my sewing machine in for service. I am hoping for no traffic and a somewhat uneventful day. And maybe more coffee. 

Traveling, Adulting and Inspiration

     A week and a half ago I ordered a whole bunch of Sparkle Rays ribbon after seeing Maire's stash. Finding 1/16" ribbon is a bit of a challenge so any time I have a new brand name it makes the search just a bit easier. From this photo array I am starting to think I might like the color pink. Maybe. 

     I did not get to jump into playing with my new ribbon right away, but I did finally get to use the new super fine point glue bottles I picked up. Also inspired by my visit with Maire. Once you get the consistency of the glue just right it makes absolutely perfect, narrow lines and leaves you with basically no glue clean-up. I used a second bottle for my Jewel It glue. Now I can apply the jewel glue right to the doll and it comes out perfectly. For years I have been dabbing it on with tweezers. This will save me a lot of glue and potentially make applying bling faster and easier. I love finding ways to be efficient. 

     This purple doll was a custom order. The customer wanted a similar doll to the blue doll I made for the Breyerfest sale. While gathering materials to make this doll I realized that purple is not an easy color to come by these days. I already had the glitter purple but I didn't have any patterned purple fabric. So I went to Joann's and found very little. This was one though and I really liked it. I guess though I should start buying up purple fabric if I happened to see it. I know it is the favorite color of a lot of people but it is sort of hard to come by.

      Yesterday I was chatting with Fabian and he offered to send me his sewing machine. How do I have such amazing people in my life? How did I get so lucky? Anyway, I told him I can't even imagine the cost to ship a sewing machine and I should just take mine in for a tune-up because that is probably all it needs. I mentioned I had not done it because I HATE calling people I don't know so I had not called the place to check costs and so on. He said he would call for me, just give him the number. OK, I needed to adult at that point so I looked the place up, called, told them what I was having for issues and was told it is likely a thread tension issues (yes, I know that) which will most likely be fixed with a tune-up. I also learned cool things about my machine, which is self lubricating. Apparently they will just continue to lubricate themselves the more you use them. Who knew? I have no idea how it works. The lady on the phone said that you do need to use them though or they will freeze up. I told her what I do and that I use the machine at least once a week but it is several (many) years old and has never been serviced. Anyway, adulting happened and I can bring the machine in for service tomorrow. I also called my Mom to see if I could come and use hers if I absolutely had to. That was a yes. So now I have relief. And maybe soon will have less battles with my sewing machine. That will also make working more efficient. 
     In a bit Travis and I are off to New Jersey for a pony play date with Jackie. I am really excited, I can't even remember the last time I saw her. The Internet makes everyone a bit closer, but there is no substitute for sitting face to face with your friends. So we'll go and hang out and I very likely will find more inspiration to work. Traveling is not super easy for me, I LOVE seeing people and new places are fun, but familiar is great. I could really do the same thing almost all the time and be content. Sadly, that same thing is often binge watching shows. I have been trying to get out more and go more places and do new things. New York and New Jersey are in the same direction and use a lot of the same highways, so I have gotten pretty used to traveling on I-95. They conveniently have a whole bunch of rest stops along both sides. But I have now been to Long Island, Brooklynn and spent time in NYC because my GPS is weird. So today I am going to aim for the Tappan Zee bridge and see if I can force the GPS to cooperate. It's good to try new things. I should probably wake Travis up or we will never be ready to go. 

Shiny Clothes

     I love shiny things. I am a bling person. I love sparkles and shimmer and eye catching details of all sorts. Not all shiny things are great though. Working with shiny fabric, in miniature, is fairly challenging. I guess I could use pins to help me, but who has time for that nonsense? And really, in miniature pins just sometimes don't work. 

     Anyway, Jackie asked me to make her a roadster driver and other than a couple of options she chose from and her choice of colors for the silks, I got to do whatever I wanted. Which was fun for the most part. Roadster silks all sort of look the same, with some minor differences. So I went with a basic idea, fought with the slippery fabric and my temperamental sewing machine and finally managed to make this doll. 

     Honestly, the sewing probably would have been super easy if my sewing machine was not acting up. I don't know if it just needs a tune-up or if it's on death's doorstep. I really hope I don't have to replace my sewing machine. At least not any time soon. OK, back to the point, Jackie's doll. The fabric was a bit finicky, anything that is slippery and frays easily usually is, but it glues amazingly! I never do top stitching on a doll because it is out of scale. So I always glue my hems. This material (whatever it is. Some sort of lining fabric I think) just grabs onto the glue perfectly, without it soaking through. Which is not the case with a lot of fabrics. I struggled with my lack of motivation for a few days (I meant to finish this doll on Monday) and she is done and I am happy. I can bring her down to Jackie on Friday and that will make me happy too.
    I am hoping the bit of motivation I found this afternoon will carry over into tomorrow. I want to work on, and maybe even finish, a western pleasure doll. I have a good start on her so it might be possible. I will have hours here all by myself. I finally settled on a new show to watch. Yesterday I found the show Special on Netflix. I thought it was really good but the shows were only about 15 minutes each and I think the entire season was 9 episodes. So that didn't last long. I tried several other recommendations today (Netflix "because you watched...") but I didn't like most of them. So I finally started on 13 Reasons Why. I don't know if I have ever seen a warning at the beginning of a show quite like the one I saw today. I have heard a lot of interesting things about the show and the concept is intriguing. I would love some show recommendations if anyone has any. I have Netflix, Hulu, Amazon Prime and HBO but I think I am going to cancel that one. Hopefully 13 Reasons Why is not too depressing and will last me a little bit.

Shiny Boots

     Like pretty much every artist or crafter in the history of artists and crafters, I collect materials for projects. Most of us do it, we get an idea for a new project or see a new material/color that we like and we just HAVE to buy it. Of course we have every intention of using the stuff, but intentions don't actually get the projects done. Last week I bought a variety of new material for doll making and got a couple pieces that I thought would be cool on the horse boots. And then everything sat in the bag on my kitchen table. You got it, I didn't even put it away! But I did actually have the intention of doing something with the stuff I got. 

    So this morning I woke up 45 minutes before I needed to get up and I didn't feel like working on a doll just yet. I decided, since the material was staring me in the face, it might be time to make some horse boots. So I got a few pairs made from the cool iridescent blue that I bought. But since this took longer than 45 minutes, and I was up extra early today, I was too tired to make any more. So what I ended up with was a pair of splint boots, fetlock boots and skid boots. I was going to also make a pair of open front boots and pony sized skid boots, but that just didn't happen. Maybe later. Maybe in a week, who can tell. But I like how this stuff looks and I think this color is a fun addition to the boot lineup. 

     I'll admit, part of the reason I talked myself into making the boots was so I had something to talk about today. I have managed a post every single day in July so far. I don't think I have managed that any other month so far. So I really wanted to keep it up. I am hoping to find some motivation to work on a doll later, and Elecktra is coming over, so maybe I will end up with something to talk about tomorrow. Or maybe I will just start rambling. 

Puppy Love

       Today I went to hang out with my friend Angelique. Her dog, Pebbles, decided that I was totally neglecting her and buried her head in my lap. That was fine with me, it’s been a long time since I got any puppy love. 

     Plus, Pebbles was keeping me warm. The temperature was at least 25 degrees lower today than it was 2 days ago. And I was super cold.

     Isn’t she cute? Angelique has another dog, Josie. Today was his 3rd gotcha day. And he hid under the bed. I have been over there a bunch and Josie has only brushed against me once. Maybe a few more visits and he might decide I am not so terrifying. I told him I don’t eat dogs. He doesn’t seem to believe me.

     The last 2 days it was cooler and less sweaty weather than it has been. I should have been more motivated to do things, but working has been a struggle. I did finally get some sewing done.

     And I managed to get a couple of cross country kits done.  I was not super productive today, but at least I got a couple of things done. Hopefully I can make a bit more progress tomorrow. I think Elecktra is coming over and I have to go out and meet my aunts to pick something up, but I probably have some time to do a bit of doll work. I have to get my butt moving on Jackie’s doll after all.

Breyerfest Fun

     I have never been to Breyerfest. I have wanted to go many times over the years but so far have not managed to make the trip happen. Sooner or later I will work it out, but so far it has not been in the cards for me. The last few years have been particularly hard for me, the FOMO has been rough and I spend a ton of time stalking Facebook and hoping to see what is going on in Kentucky. This year though, thanks to some truly amazing people, I got to be a bigger part of Breyerfest than I have ever managed in the past. 

      My good friend Jackie brought dolls down to sell for me. That is huge. I'm actually going to go down to see Jackie on Friday and have a pony play date. I'm really excited about this! I can't even remember the last time I saw Jackie. Thursday afternoon of the Breyerfest weekend Jackie sent me a message that a doll sold within 15 minutes of her arriving. That made me feel really wonderful. A couple of hours later I got a message from Heather asking if I take paypal and we chatted back and forth for a bit and she sent me a pic of the drawer of dolls. It was awesome. 

     A little while later I got a message from my good friend Fabian. He told me there was a line of people waiting to look at the dolls! I nearly cried. He sent me some pictures of the people waiting, it was so much like being there! We chatted back and forth and he sent me this wonderful picture:

     I told him the dolls look good on him. I also got an updated picture of the doll drawer. I went out in my yard and FaceTimed with Fabian and Heather for a bit. That was so wonderful! It wasn't being at Breyerfest, but it was closer than I have ever been. Thanks Fabian for keeping in touch all weekend!

      I also got to be a part of the NaMoPaiMo display. Jennifer sent me this picture. NaMoPaiMo has become such a huge and important event in the hobby. It is great to be a part of the painting and to have been able to share my ponies at Breyerfest. Thank you Jennifer for bringing them along!

     This morning I got a batch of photos from Anna Blackburn. She has ordered a lot of dolls from me. Recently, she has ordered some of the more interesting, and sometimes challenging, dolls. She was showing in Breyerfest live and her photos may be all the photos I have from the show. There was the knight I recently finished. 

The Dani doll I made for her awhile back. 

A western pleasure doll that was part of the batch I sent for the Breyerfest sale. 

     And a western pleasure doll I did awhile ago. Anna sent me more than just these photos, but I chose just a few to share. They really helped me be a little bit more a part of Breyerfest and I truly appreciate it. 

      Fabian and I also had a really great chat about my plan. I now have a savings plan in place, and as long as I stick to it, and all the stars align, I will eventually be able to go to Breyerfest. My inability to make the trip so far is not solely based on financial things, but that is a part of it. But now I have a goal. And a plan to work towards the goal. And I also have amazing people that I know are willing to help me out if I ask. So someday, maybe in a year or two, I can go to Breyerfest in person. And get to see my amazing friends in person.