Stewarding

On Monday I was given a great opportunity to Steward for a local judge.  I got to dress up for the occasion in my new straw hat and my new blingy belt... yeah, I finally got one...a little girl in the restroom said "I like your cowgirl suit!" and spend the day with the judge at a local 4-H county fair western show. I first helped place the showmanship teams on the rail after their patterns were finished. After each class I took the placings to the announcer. I reset objects for the Mini-Horse in-hand trail and jumping, then for horsemanship I sat next to her and got great insight into what she was looking for in the patterns. For the pleasure classes I got to be the go-between and tell the announcer when the judge was ready to see the next gait, which was kinda funny towards the end of the day when the announcer ran out of steam and forgot to watch me. :)  I can't blame him, I was out of steam to! I almost went home with the walkie-talkie on my belt!  For trail we sat and I scribed for her.  It was a long day.  I don't know how she does this THREE DAYS IN A ROW with travel days in between as she had just gotten back to Ohio from Michigan following two 15-hour days of judging Pinto.  She's a wonder, and a wonderful judge and mentor.  It was a great day, but I never realized I could get just as exhausted doing that as I do actually showing!  Watching the 4-H kids brought me back to my own fair days and I just loved hearing the other shows going on at the same time in the beef barn, the dairy barn, and the swine barn.

I'm Making a Show Jacket!

I am making a show jacket for one of our fellow bloggers.  She can "out" herself in the comments if she chooses.  There will be a whole post about it when it's finished, but here is just a teaser of how it's coming together...

All Is Quiet

Just a few little things to report from the world of Junior.

- I've been doing the morning feeding at the barn twice a week to help with board payments and to get my lazy butt out of bed and moving around without excuses.

- My back is annoyed today by the horrible humid rainy muck that is central Ohio this week, but otherwise seems to be working it's way in the direction of "getting better", but I probably shouldn't say that out loud.

-It took a good two weeks after my fall to feel physically recovered from it, and I was more mentally shaken than I thought.  I cantered today for the first time today and was a bit nervous.  Wuss.

- I haven't gotten the neck stretcher out again yet, but riding with it is on the list for this week.

- The barn tried Junior in some lessons but he's not been the most cooperative so he's won the right not to be a lesson pony... again.

- So instead of lessons, I'm trying out half-leasing Junior to the sweetest couple I have ever met.  If it works out it has the potential to be the best possible situation.  They take a lesson each week and do two more rides per week, leaving me 4 days with him and lately that is plenty.  The nice couple had been leasing another horse but their owner moved the horse and they want to stay at this barn.  They really like him so far, are very smart, eager to learn, and promised not to let him try to be the boss.  ;)

- I am more concerned about his stifle(s) than I have been before.  I'm hoping he's just going through that phase between totally out of shape and back into shape and will, with steady work, turn back into the cadenced horse I know he can be.  My last two rides I felt it stick too often. We've been here before so hopefully it will get better as he gets stronger.  Plus he snuck some fatty past me and is suddenly on the chubby side which can't help.  We cut his grain back a bit, hopefully that'll catch up.

In other news, my house-rabbit continues to entertain me.  She's not proving to be a cuddler, which is disappointing but not unexpected.  She might change her mind in time.  But for now I'm satisfied with feeding her kale and banana chips when she comes over to say Hi.

Show Shirt Update

My 2011 Show Shirt - - -

For some unexplainable reason, this post has remained in draft form for almost 18 months.  So here it is.  No idea why I didn't post it!

I'm sure you have all been waiting for a progress report on that show shirt. If you couldn't tell from the peek at the crystals, I moved in a slightly different direction than I had been going with the diagonal designs. I moved on with the same combination of colors, still mostly black, but with color up towards the face. It will be symmetrical so that I can use the shirt for horsemanship, too. I also decided to be a little brave and try some Ultrasuede appliques. I had attempted this with the purple shirt and found it was a lot harder to double-layer them than I thought so they ended up as just simple straight V pieces on that one. Last year I discovered how easily they will cut and position themselves if you first use Steam-a-Seam Lite2. I was still not brave enough for anything but straight lines.

It wasn't until I started playing around with different brushes on photoshop that I started to really want a curlier applique and think it might be worth it to try again. I tried to use stencils and paint and that looked.... like total crap. I have been paying a lot of attention any time I get close to a high-end show outfit with appliques trying to see how they're done. So I got out the Ultrasuede, made stencils from the same photoshop brushes using a trusty laminator, and went to town. This is where I'm at:

I first tried a bunch of combinations on photoshop and then I cut a bunch of Ultrasuede pieces and played with them on the fabric, starting with the center front piece, which is in the photo. It's going to have a back zipper, rather than the front. I may regret this at a summer show when I miss being able to just unzip my jacket to catch a breeze, but it'll look cleaner. I don't know how many different combinations I went through before committing.

The crystals aren't attached yet. I'm having a slight technical difficulty and I may need to do some woodging (yes, that IS a technical term) to fix it... not sure how yet: the black fabric I'm using for the base doesn't seem to like the iron... which becomes a problem when you are IRONING FUSIBLE SH*T TO IT!!! Ooops. It's probably not going to affect the fit, only the fact that the brocade and the black are stitched together and the brocade is not shrinking with the black, hence the wrinkles in the photo. If I don't have the iron hot enough the appliques/crystals won't adhere. If the iron is too hot the fabric shrinks up badly. So I have to be very very careful, which will require me to have to use my little crystal setting tool instead of the whole iron so I have to apply the crystals one by one by one instead of in large iron-sized areas. That's going to be a day where I work in front of the TV.

Here's what I think it'll look like when I'm done, just slightly different appliques.