My Blue Period

 Okay, I haven't blogged for a while. I've been trying the face book thing. But it's always on my phone and I don't type fast there. I feel people would get bored with a long post so I like this for one thing and that for another.

In any case I've been spinning, knitting, and crocheting my little heart out. Except when we went to Sturgis on vacation where I mostly just rode on the back of the bike. And crashed when we got back to camp.

I bought that blue fiber you see in the photo above, at a thing we went to in September. I haven't purchased any fiber or yarn in a very long time.  Maybe since February. I've been hitting the stash pretty hard. But who can resist those beautiful shades of blue? I call it Shannon blue since that's the color my daughter, Shannon, likes so much.

 I am attempting to keep the color run true by spinning identical pieces on two different bobbins. Now I realize this may not work. I can't seem to split the fiber evenly. But, what the heck, it make me feel like it might work in a couple spots at least. The end result remains to be seen.

 Darryl decided to learn to make cinches. The cinch is the thing that attaches to the saddle to hold the saddle on the horse. Mohair is the best and most comfortable for the horse. At least we think so. But we are fiber people so we might lean toward a more natural product if we can.  It is darn near impossible to find or buy a 38" or long mohair cinch. And if you happen to have a draft cross horse or draft horse you will need a long cinch. Anyway, after Darryl took a class and I saw what he made I got sucked in as well. 

The cinch in the photo above was being made by a young lady in my class. I got to take the class just for the cost of materials because my over achiever husband impressed the instructor so much when he took the class that he was asked to assist with this class. So I lucked out.

This is a picture of my second cinch. Darryl taught me to make the basic cinch out of scraps of stuff we had at home so I could make a vaquero style in the class. It's just a little fancier than the basic cinch. Everyone kinda shook their heads when they saw the colors I chose. But this is the color I want on my little pinto horse. And I chose the black and reddish brown because they are the colors on her. When I finished my cinch everyone loved it. One guy liked it so much he copied the pattern I put on the ends by the buckles. I made it up and the instructor was pretty impressed that I took it out a few times until I got the effect I wanted. It's a short cinch for my little horse so it doesn't have bars between the center diamond and the ends. Most cinches do.

This shows all three of my projects. The two cinches and the breast collar. The light colored cinch on the right was the practice one I did at home out of old cinch stuff and yarn scraps. Everyone seemed to like it because it's stained and looks old even though I just made it. I'm gonna hang it on the wall as a decoration. It's not strong enough to be used. Underneath the two cinches is two wings of a breast collar. If it was to be done all in mohair there would be a third piece hanging straight down from the center ring. I made this because my neighbor wanted to replace her husband's horse's breast collar. He is a leather worker and will make the third piece out of leather. He doesn't know that yet because it's a Christmas present for him. I embroidered their brand on the brown part where the breast collar attaches to the saddle. I can remove that if she doesn't like it. It's a little hard to see but their brand is the Horseshoe L ranch. He's a conservative guy so I put it in gray so it didn't jump out at you.

Now I am going to make a breast collar to match the cinch for my little horse. I think I'll make a collar for my dog. Darryl is working on a hat band. But he wants a matching breast collar for his horse. I will post a photo of the really cool cinch he made another time.

Just what I need. Another hobby.