Pony Express

I am a huge fan of purchasing horses online, model horses that is. I am expecting Archer (Artist Resin by Trish Forsyth), Cloud Nine from private seller, and now a piebald ASB Stallion!


Can't wait to have them in hand, expect photos!

Oh goodness it's been more than a week!

I have misplaced my camera, then found it, started a post, and procrastinated until now!

This week I have been working like a mad woman; two saddles, a martingale, two pairs of boots, two girths were made, and another full set is in the works. Here in Maryland about 10" of snow fell cancelling school for three days, which definitely helps stupid day job getting in the way of tack...

Fun green/brown x-country set

Hunt-seat saddle made with my NEW ROO LEATHER
(can you tell I'm excited about my NEW ROO LEATHER!!!)

Some TEENY TINY open front boots, with yes,
functioning buckles on frustratingly tiny straps

Saturday (technically yesterday now?) I received my FIRST EVER RESIN. Excited is an understatement, I feel changed since opening the box from Deb at Resins By Randy. My new herd addition is an exquisite Leica Vino by Alexandra Kline at Kline Sculptures. I can't wait to tack her up, I have a few sets in mind, which I'm sure will come about in the next few months. A likely story I tell myself.

Brunello for scale..LV is a BIG mare

If you have been stalking my blog, you will see I have added an itemized price list, and a list of artist resins I am looking to buy or trade for. Feel free to email me (zoehatgi@gmail.com) or message me on Facebook (Zoe Hatgi) if you interested in purchasing tack, trading an artist resin, or looking to sell your resin for cold hard paypal currency.

Breyerfest is 110 days away, find me with Enterprise Props in room 203 at the Clarion! I will be bringing tack (as much as I can make!!). Feel free to comment if you have any specific requests for tack that you would be interested in purchasing :)

Teamwork Makes the Dream Work

Sorry for the cheesy title, but I have some exciting news!

As I have advertised, I will be at Breyerfest with Enterprise Props in room 203, but I just confirmed that I will be going with 5 Paws Studios's Kristian Beverly! I am so excited, it will be absolute tack mayhem and I can't wait :D

I would also like to announce on behalf of Kristian and myself that we will be doing a giveaway! At the moment we are still drafting ideas of what tack we will be making, I would personally be open to suggestions, though I know my set will most definitely be English based, and Kristian's is likely to be Western.

We will run the giveaway as a week long contest with smaller daily contests and general entries over our Instagram and possible bonus entries through Facebook. More details will come up closer to time for the giveaway.

Best of luck!

P.S. Feel free to post suggestions or questions below! I will do my best to answer them :)

Good Mail Day

I received a number of items I am very excited for today!

My large order from The World of Model Horse Collecting of stirrups, two western trees, and some assorted hardware. The stirrups should last me till BreyerFest (so much sale tack going out the door!!)

Two of these, should be fun!! 

Aren't these treads so cute!!

Dragoon stirrups for a personal set of Hercules tack when time permits :)

I may have forgotten I ordered boots from a friend (Erika Isbell). I was so excited to finally see them in person!! I love these boots, and can't wait to show with them. She sent me a surprise gift of a halter with leadrope as well. I think it looks smashing on Alborozo, poor thing needs clothes. 

Eeeee!

Alborozo looking handsome in bright colors

With all these new materials I have to make some new tack. Up right now is a trade jumping set, two girths, a hunt seat saddle with standing martingale, a cross country saddle with grab strap and hind brushing boots. 

Second wave of orders include a QuarterMaster jumping set in black with silver hardware, eggbutt bit, two H/J sets for braided Newsworthy, and a trade set of tack. Feel free to email me or message me on Facebook to get into my order books!

Whoops it's been a week!

Hi!

I have been busy this week, not very busy with tack though. I did start four new saddles, two of them have billets and the seats are covered. Today's goal is to get the other two billeted and covered. Three of the four are spoken for as of right now, the fourth is a Dressage saddle.

The SECOND Alborozo came in this week, he will be up for sale or trade for resins at BreyerFest (Room 203 with Enterprise Props!).

Speaking of resins, Archer and Leica Vino are en route to my collection.

Courtesy of Kline Sculptures

Courtesy of Resin Horse Editions on Blogspot

National Model Tack Month (NaMoTaMo) is in April! I have never participated, and aim to make a western saddle this year. I make lots of english tack, and quite frankly western tack terrifies me. To ease myself into tooling, the western saddle will not be tooled, but I will be doing a minimally tooled dressage saddle. 

Photos of the completed sets will be posted as they are finished! 

Marching into March

If you are friends with me on Facebook (Zoe Hatgi) you will have seen my haul of items from Jo-Ann Fabrics and Michael's Craft Store last week.

Pile-O-Stuff

This included a Silhouette Curio (a cutting machine made for balsa wood, leather, and other thicker materials). The machine works GREAT, except when you use it improperly and cut through the sticky mat, not that I would do such a thing *whistling*. So despite breaking my new toy in a rather minor way, I would still strongly recommend the curio, and plan to use it often.

Had to order new mats :( 

 The Musketeer's saddle is coming along, though the rigging is fighting me. As of today at 5PM the saddle has stirrups, and a sweat flap, still no billets or girth, I hope this set will be finalized later.

I've decided to go out on a limb and offer 5 custom saddle spots through Etsy, to be completed on YOUR schedule instead of mine. There are 7 trees sitting in front of me, so I'm hoping to also offer two saddles of my color choices via Etsy. I am really slacking on making tack for Etsy, I hope to change that this month.

As of right now I have one more open Horseisle order, one unstarted trade, and one unstarted commission. If you are interested in being on my commissions list (I offer a 20% discount on all items!) please let me know. These will take lower priority than the Etsy customs, but are still personalized to your liking :)



If you would like to stay in my loop of crafting craziness feel free to request the "ZH Tack Group" on Facebook: ZH Tack Group

I would also like to thank everyone who has liked my ZH Tack page! We are now 100+ strong :)

Out of my comfort zone

I like to think I'm willing to take on challenges.

From Hercules tack

To pegasus tack

To what will be my first medieval-based set

In the early working stages

Hopefully it will end up looking something like this

Here's to new tack adventures, I ought to make another pot of coffee...

I have a problem

I made a stop at Stablemates Inc, my local tack shop and the source of most of my Breyers.

Two new models Empres and EZ To Spot were just calling my name...I couldn't ignore them

Alborozo came in the mail today from Russia, I have never fallen in love with a model on sight, he is a true beauty.

So today I added another three 1:9 scale horses to my collection. Whoops

Family Portrait

This morning I confirmed a trade I am doing with Zoja Makovec, a very talented young artist I had seen resculpt a marwari for NaMoPaiMo. She is getting two sets of medieval tack for turning my customized foundation stallion into an Australian Stock Horse.

Keri is getting two saddles and boots

Kaylee is getting two horseisle sets


At the moment my BreyerFest tack list is as follows...

• x2 Black Dressage Sets
• x1 Brown Dressage Set
• x3 Black Jumping Sets
• x3 Light/Dark Brown Jumping Sets
• x3 Chocolate Jumping Sets
• x2 Chocolate with Color Jumping Sets
• x2 Black with Color Jumping Sets

This totals to be 16 saddle sets. Wish me luck! 

Good thing models don't need stalls

Five, yes FIVE (5) new horses entered the Hatgi household today.

Who knows where they'll be "sleeping" once I need that space again

Good thing they do not need stalls/hay/water/etc.

Valegro, Rhapsody in Black, Paint me a Pepto, and two surprise Stablemates

NaMoPaiMo Party; a meeting of the minds

Howdy!

This last week has been very eventful; a new part time job, school, and most excitingly I got to meet Kristian Beverly of Five Paws Studios!

I'll go through in order of appearance above..

Part time job involves riding horses and teaching lessons when the occasion arises. I am very excited to ride with this barn. They import horses from Canada often, and focus on Jumpers. Maybe I will find my next competition horse with them :)

School is going on, not much to say on the topic other than I am taking full advantage of the printers in the library to print reference images and blog tutorials LOL

Lastly I attended Kristian Beverly's NaMoPaiMo party this weekend, and have been bitten with the customizing bug (and arguably the showing bug!! eek!).

I was first to arrive, Susan Young of Timaru Star II arrived not long after me, and of course when three tack makers are together in the same room, tack seems to bubble up. Susan had brought a bag of tack from her collection, Hannah Bear's alligator saddle, the elk saddle, an Erin Corbette saddle, mostly pieces I had only seen online. I brought three completed saddles and one work in progress, none are my favorite nor my best pieces, but I was happy to have a trained eye to inspect it and give me some feedback. Kristian of course had heaps of tack for us to drool over, her western saddles make me almost want to try one (I still refuse to get the kit I had started back out, I convince myself I'm too busy), and of course her english tack is superb.

I met Susan Young, Elizabeth (Lizzy) Mace, and Maddie Klein, we had a grand time making a mess in Kristian's dedicated craft area which is a room I have decided I need.

A young grey, unnamed as of right now

My reference picture, photo credit to Google (true source unknown)

This makes 3 completed NaMoPaiMo horses, all Trad scale. I have a feeling I will continue to tweak the shading and continue to "play" with his color. 

Now that I have three horses done, I'm going to bring my focus back to tack and finish my custom orders so I can get onto making BreyerFest tack. 

NaMoPaiMo is HERE

It's finally February, or the month better known as NaMoPaiMo (National Model Painting Month), this will be my first year participating.

My Jacy has been prepped, primed, and pastelled too quickly, so I'm headed back to the prepping and priming phases. On January 30th I decided to add one of my two Cortes C models from BreyerFest last year into my project pile. Jacy will be done as a chestnut paint, though it is looking to be more of an apricot dun color now, and Cortes will be a blue roan. 

Cortes as of last night

School started up this week, and time to ride is becoming scarce between tack orders and homework, but I managed to ride Ziggy once, Montana once, and Lily twice. For a six year old Lily has done well with her two weeks off due to a minor tendon injury, and we haven't lost any ground due to it. If finances and her physical soundness permit I will try to take her to USPC championships in Tryon NC this year. 

I bought my ticket to BreyerFest 2018 AND an Alborozo who is my first wishlist horse. I plan to bring some English tack sets (Saddle/Bridle/Pad/Girth/Breastplate) to BreyerFest to be sold for $175 a set. I will bring some halters, bridles, and breastplates as well if you are not in the market for a full set of tack.

I am doing my pricing a bit backwards where the pre-made things are more expensive than the custom orders, but if you want an item now, you can have it for a premium, whereas a custom set may take longer so I will be a bit less rushed and charge less for it. 

My list of tack to be made is shrinking slowly but surely, to find out what I am currently working on, check out my Facebook page under ZHTack! 

Next week will be a bit more intense, but I think with enough coffee I can handle it.

Busy January

I started school at the local community college this week, I have 3 classes left until I am DONE with my associates.

I have also started my latest Horseisle tack set order.

Pegasus Saddle

Those photos were from before I got the piping, rear pads, feathers, and stirrups added. The saddle looks a bit more like this now...

(Notice my desk is still a mess)

I hope to have the netting and the tassels added by sometime this week, I may do the girth tonight and start work on the bridle. 

One set a week seems to be my new norm! It's fun to be busy, mostly because it doesn't interfere with my school work for now.

Best Dressed Pony

This month Newsworthy has been my resident "saddle stand", and winner of biggest closet.

I have made two fairly identical sets of tack for the little grey pony, both in two-tone brown, one as an eventing/jumper set, and another as a hunter/eq set.

The latter is nearing completion, and I am VERY pleased with how it is turning out, the saddle in particular. There are a lot of firsts for my tack on this set; stirrup leather keepers, piping around the skirting, piping on the pommel, and pinning of the skirting through the tree in lieu of glue.

This is my first time making stirrup leather keepers

I pinned the skirting through the tree with a head pin tucked neatly under the panels (first time doing so!)

I absolutely love the profile and "look" this saddle has. 

The bridle is even cuter (in my opinion)

This will be my first successful split crown piece, padded noseband/browband/crown, first successful raised noseband and browband, and probably the nicest bridle I've made to date.

Newsworthy is definitely my best dressed (sometimes the only dressed...) pony!

Little Things

   There was no pun intended when I titled this blog post, but it seems fitting enough to keep. All of the little things in my life feel like they are falling into (and some out of) place.

   I have one more semester until I am done with my associates, which feels great, but leaves some uncertainty about what I will be doing this fall.

   Lily, my lease horse, has had a tendon injury. It's early in the season, so I won't count us out for shows later on in the season, but it does put a damper on our progress. However, I do have a new horse Montana and two free ride horses (Ziggy and Eddie) in addition to Liam my mom's horse that I can go ride anytime. I'm trying to not let Lily's injury get me down, and stay focused on those other horses.

   I have completed two full tack sets, and taken a few more tack set orders in my books, it feels great to have some business. My tack sales profit will stay in my PayPal account until I decide what I will be doing with it this summer; USPC Championships at Tryon or Breyerfest at the KHP. I would be thrilled to go for either, and given Lily's injury, if it ends up recurring, I may be more inclined to go to BF 2018. I will be bringing as much tack with me to BF and to USPC Champs either way.

   This will be my first time participating in NaMoPaiMo, and I have selected a TSC Jacy to be my model to hold the portrait of the newest herd member at the Hatgi house, Montana. Known to us as "tana" now, she is an 11 year old mare of unknown breeding, and perhaps the sanest horse I have had the privilege to own.

She went to the local McDonald's without any problems!

 This might be the most sufficiently whelming two months of the year between school, tack making, real horses, and NaMoPaiMo

Hercules Tack

I find myself making tack that doesn't actually exist outside of my work bench, and that is thoroughly exciting! (I also find myself using exclamation points often)


This set of "herc" tack is going to my friend Lindsay in the great state of Texas. We know each other via a game called Horseisle, it has consumed a great deal of our childhood, and she asked me if I could do something that has never been done before; make a set of tack from the game for a model horse. She recently had two of her favorite horses commissioned from Sakori's Customs, this set will be for "Josie" who is painted on the Othello mold.

I took a few up-close shots of the tack via Horseisle library, and a reference photo of the tack in proportion to Josie's body in game. From these photos I started to make the set.

Josie the Shire horse with all of her Hercules tack on

Bridle

Saddle Pad

Saddle

Work began with the bridle for Jos

Luckily I have a Wintersong to body double for Josie

Then the saddle progressed in various stages of doing and undoing over the course of about two weeks (due to weather being so nice then not so nice, etc.) Progress photos are available via the ZHTack group! Feel free to request membership, everyone will be accepted. Step-by-step progression will be shown for every set of tack I make.

The finished saddle is my favorite, for obvious reasons, and for the fact that I created something that does not physically exist except here, now, on my table! I am very excited for the opportunity to create a unique set.

If you ask my friends they will say that the saddle pad was my least favorite part of the set to make. Over several days I complained about how horrid the pad made the set look, and how I wanted to just "half-butt" the pad for time sake. Alas from their support I persevered and the saddle pad was born. I cannot forget to credit my mom for countless 3-minute brainstorming conversations to inspire the final pad design, and to crawl towards finishing this lovely set. 

I want to thank Linds for allowing some creative freedom, and for my full head of hair that remains only because of concessions made on design for convenience sake and safety of the models. 

Here displayed is the saddle pad, saddle, girth, and bridle

Josie's Maryland double all tacked up

Next I will be working on a pegasus saddle set for Nirvana (Vana)!

Tackling Some Goals!

I have a new tack item up in my Etsy Store! I have been working on mass-producing, or rather producing in batches. I made 6 identical black with silver hardware breastplates, all of which are available on Etsy right now :)

Two goals checked off so far! New items in the store, and a blog post written!

2018 Goals

Goals work better if you write them down I'm told (sarcasm, goals are so much more achievable if written down, and are basically impossible if left scripted only in your head)

1. Add 1 sale item to my Etsy store a week

2. Blog weekly, even if it's only about the new Etsy item

3. Make a saddle set each month

4. Go to Breyerfest 2018 with a few sets of tack (3?), 10 Halters, 10 Bridles, and 10 Breastplates

5. Add some resins (at least 1) to my Breyer collection

6. Rid myself of some (5?) of my OF Breyers

7. Try my hand at customizing, emphasis on the "try"

A Study of a Stackhouse Saddle

So much has happened in the last few weeks!

I have started a lease on a 5 year old TB mare, Lily Mae

Lily during the first snow of the year

And with new horses comes new tack (because old tack seems to never fit any other horse in my house) 

I am back into making saddles, most are prototypes, therefore available at a discount until I am happy with my patterns and methods of dyeing etc. I have had to put most progress on hold since I am out of skiver, but the lovely Carol Williams at Rio Rondo has sold me a rather large hide that should be arriving today! 

The rest of this post will be photos of details on Ms Lily's new saddle; a close contact Stackhouse saddle, it is absolutely lovely, and my new patterns will be based upon it.