The Year Of The Horse - Part One

While every year as long as I can remember has been "the year of the horse", this year I have something really neat in the works to celebrate some of the horses who have made those years so special. 

I've had several really nice horses.  Horses that taught me so very, very much.  Horses that opened doors for me and took me places I never dreamed I'd go.  I have very little left but memories.  I didn't even own a camera back then.  What I wouldn't give for at least some pictures of pretty Aria as a young mare.

I remember quickly cutting these locks from Handy's tail as the backhoe lumbered up the driveway that awful morning last year, but I don't remember specifically cutting the different colors.  Maybe I did.  I don't remember cutting that chunk of mane either, but there it is.  And that's all we're going to say about that. 

Several years ago I found a big piece of Handy's tail out in the Pond Field.  He was never out there and even if he had been, there was nothing out there that would have snagged his tail and cut it like a knife.  I think he must have caught it on a fence nail and a bird picked it up and tried to carry it away to build a nest.  I saved it.

Tim gave me a gift for Christmas that including a flat piece of hitched tail hair would be icing on the cake.  I don't know anyone who hitches and didn't want to risk sending Handy's hair off to a stranger, so I decided to see if it could be woven.  I did a tiny sample using some of Hickory's tail and felt encouraged enough to give it a try.  I used that tangled bird nest hair...just in case.

Because there was no way I was ever going to be able to separate out each individual hair, I decided to cut it into manageable lengths and work from there.  At first I pulled out random groups of 15 hairs and let the colors fall wherever they ended up.  As I worked further, I decided to try and manipulate it into a pattern. 

I used a simple straight twill threading and the stair stepped picks look remarkably similar to hitched hair.  The strong linen warp I used was slick, so I added a little beeswax to each strand to help it all grab better (not sure if that's going to help or not, but figured it couldn't hurt).  I threw in some sections of wool to hold, too, because everything's better with wool ;-). 

The white wool is Punkin and the red/brown is some Keebler dyed with walnuts.  Wait!  That's actually Buddy :-D.  See, blogging really does help you remember...or at least reminds you when you forget ;-).  When I looked for the walnut post to link, there it was - it's Buddy :-). 

And as I was weaving I glanced out the window and saw a snow heart in one of my favorite trees.

Here's a hint for Part Two - coming soon!

And here's a great thing to do with scrap horse hair (and yarn, thread, wool, dog hair...).  Maybe there will be a bird out there this spring who'll be saying "Remember when grandma talked about that big chunk of horse hair that was so big she couldn't carry it home?"

Spring will be here before we know it and I'm going to be looking forward to riding!