Winter has REALLY arrived.... Yuck.

It's -20 outside and snowing today. We've had such nice mild weather until today, so I guess we can't complain too much. Though I wish the wind would die down, with the wind chill it's a good -26 celcius.

But hey, we're tough Canadian girls and we can deal with it. We didn't cancel lessons this morning and all my girls did really well. The worst part was bringing in horses I think. I don't know that the horses mind the cold all that much, they were sure feeling a bit silly today!

I sure didn't feel like riding myself today. I've spent the rest of the afternoon hiding inside, watching some movies (Downton Abbey is on at 7pm tonight!), reading a new book on dressage by Jane Savoie and working on some sewing projects. Definitely a good day for it!

Into orbit we go! Well...hopefully not anyways!

So tomorrow is the big day. It's our first official "hunter-jumper" over fences show....sidesaddle.

I think I'm prepared.... at least I hope I am! I jumped again last night and things seemed to be going really well, so hopefully when we get to the show we can pull off a few nice rounds (or at the very least, not make a gigantic idiot out of ourselves lol).

I even tried out my new apron last night.... Yes that's what I've been making with all that fancy fabric. A Christmas sidesaddle outfit. Apron, vest & stock tie. I was really impressed by how well the apron fit & it hangs just about perfectly level, pretty good for my second try at making one!

The stock tie took me awhile to figure out how to tie the darned thing (probably longer than it took me to make it), I've only ever had the fake, pre-tied ones. I sat in the bathroom, in front of the mirror with my laptop on the counter, trying to follow along with the a youtube video. It was a bit funny but I think I've got it down pat now! (btw, these are extremely easy to make).
Here's the video if anyone wants to learn how to tie a proper stock.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k9-ypyBARQU

Tonight will be a busy one with all of the prep... Ride, bath Brigit, clean tack, swap bits to different bridles, clean boots, iron clothes, make sure everything is in the trailer and hopefully get some sleep!

Oh and I've got to finish my vest... Turns out the sizing on the package of the pattern and the sizing on the actual pattern itself... were different. i.e. the vest is MUCH too big for me and needs some major alterations. Just hoping I can get it done tonight!!

Can you guess??

Can you guess what I'm making.... (I'll give you a hint, it's fabric!)

It may be freezing cold out there but I'm definitely having a very productive day!

Introducing.....

The newest member of my "herd", well I guess I only have 2 at the moment so it's just a pair.
This is Rain (not sure I'm sold on her name...), she's a 15.2 HH Appendix mare, 4 years old and has just the BEST mind ever. She's so quiet and fun to ride.

A friend rode her a few weeks ago and told me about this fantastic horse I just had to take a look at. So this weekend I went and rode her on one of the hunts. We do have a hunt club up here but they're just mock hunts for fun. At first I was a little cautious because after all, this is only a 4 year old that I've never ridden before. But she was great! She just loped along and by the time we hit the halfway point of the ride we were jumping everything! She's a very honest and fun horse to jump. Doesn't pull or get hot at all.

I had so much fun on her that I thought she just had to come home with me. She definitely has the potential to be the next sidesaddle horse!

It was such a gorgeous day to be out riding in the foothills, the mountains had fresh snow on them and the temperature was perfect.

Can't wait to ride her again tonight!

The Mane Event 2011

I'm back and I survived! Actually I did more than just survive, I had a great time! But I'm not going to lie, I was exhaused last night!

Thursday evening involved a lot of this...

But our booth was looking pretty good when we were done. Now to wait for everyone else to arrive with their saddles.

Friday morning I got up good & early (watched a few royal wedding highlights of course!), went to the barn and decided against giving Brigit a full bath. It was ROTTEN outside, rain which turned to snow a little later on. Poor Brigit was soaked and shaking when I brought her in. So I just washed her legs with warm water and left her to dry in a stall with a nice pile of hay. Ran home to pack & finish ironing and then we were back to the barn to grab Brigit and my tack and we were off!

The Expo opened at 11:00 am so we had to be there before then to finish getting the booth set up. I was initially worried that we wouldn't have enough stuff for our booth but it ended up turning out really well, don't you think?

The two lovely ladies in this pic are Betty-Lynn and Amanda. I really don't think I could have pulled this off without them! Betty-Lynn makes sidesaddles and Amanda is a newcomer to the world of riding aside. We had saddles dating back to the 1700's.... Now that I think of it... Why didn't I take more photos of the saddles!! Darn.

Actually, after looking at the photos my camera took, I'm going to be purchasing a new camera very soon. This one seems to be wearing out and as you'll notice, most pictures are out of focus. How frustrating!

Anyways, we had a lot of fun answering questions and showing people what an apron was and how we wore it. It was great to have a saddle for people to try sitting in. We started a tally sheet on friday to count how many people tried sitting in the saddle. I believe we ended up with well over 200 people and probably 1/4 of those (ok maybe a tiny bit less) were men!

Friday involved a LOT of running around here and there to grab things we'd forgotten, man the booth and in the afternoon Betty-Lynn (who did the talking), Charis and I (we did the riding) had a demonstration in the round pen. I wasn't sure what Brigit would think of it but she did well.
On our way to the demo a friend of mine snapped this pic.

Betty-Lynn brought a bunch of saddles over to the round pen to use them in her talk about the progression of sidesaddles.

Then it was back to the barn to untack, change and man the booth some more. I have to say, I wish the hours weren't quite as late, we were exhausted by the end of each day. Friday the tradeshow ended at 9pm, Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 6pm. All that time and we barely even got to do any shopping! (ok I did some... hellooooo plaid breeches! hehe). I think I watched maybe 5 minutes of the Greg Best clinic, wish I could have seen more!

Saturday was another busy day but we had reinforcements come in!

From left to right is Jim, me, Betty-Lynn, Lee, Karen and Caitlin. Missing from the photo is Matt (our picture taker), Charis and Holly.

There was so many people on saturday! I couldn't get over how busy it was. On one of my trips in and out, I walked by a booth that had gloves for 50% off. I've been looking for a pair of nice brown gloves for FOREVER and finally found some here! What a deal!

In the afternoon we had another demo but this time it was in the big ring. Lee had done a write up and she graciously read it while we rode. Betty-Lynn let me wear her black habit, isn't it nice?

Here we are, headed for our afternoon demo. Charis on Peppy, Caitlin on Eddie and me on Brigit.

Pardon the blurry pics, I'm so annoyed with my camera! I hope some better pics turn up.
Caitlin went in her western outfit.

Charis rode in her queen's outfit.

And me in the black formal habit.

We tried to add some humor to our demo, so Charis & I rode in, while Caitlin ran in on foot leading her horse. When she went to try to mount by herself, Lee said "Ladies never mount from the ground!", so Caitlin whistled and her boyfriend came running in to put her up. It was definitely a crowd pleaser! We had a lot of fun showing off (especially our leg yields and lead changes). It was so hot in there that we were all out of breath after 8 minutes of riding!

Saturday night we had another demonstration during the "Saturday Night Equine Experience" as they call it. They put on a big show about 1.5 hrs long to show off different horses and ways of riding etc and the stands & floor space is usually packed. There had to be over 1000 people there watching! This was our 3 minutes of fame! It was just Caitlin and I so we devised a bit of a pattern and rode to "The Twist" by Chubby Checker. Everyone was impressed by our flying lead changes and we really got the crowd going when we let our horses gallop around the ring. It was really neat to hear that many people cheering as we raced around!

Unfortunately ALL of the pictures from my camera our evening performance were blurry.

We had so many people come by the booth the next day and comment on how impressed they were and how much they enjoyed watching us ride! I think the funniest comment was from one lady who said "That was really neat to watch... They didn't even look scared!". LOL

I think we did incredibly well for this being our first time having a booth, it definitely caught people's eye and generated a lot of interest.

Sunday we got to sit back and just watch the booth and do a little bit of shopping here and there. It was nice not to have to ride, we were all tuckered right out.

Tired and still so much to do!

Well I got nearly everything I needed to do today, done. First of all, I am so grateful for my wonderful friend Karen, she was such a huge help today.

I got off work mid-afternoon, after a trip to the greenhouses to grab some plants to beautify our booth. Well in my usual fashion "some" plants turned into LOTS of plants. A pot of pansies, a couple planters with petunias, a hosta like plant, some sweet smelling purple stuff and pussy-willow branches, and some cut flowers for a bouquet. Karen and I got her trailer all loaded up this afternoon and then we were off!

We lucked out because our booth was really near to the front doors where we had parked so we didn't have to cart everything very far. We got all of the big stuff in, pictures up, flowers in, carpet down, saddles on the stands and the mannequin dressed. Looks pretty darned good! I'm really proud of it. Tomorrow morning we'll finish it all off and then hopefully things will go smoothly! Just have to finish putting some photos up, set up the slideshow and perhaps do some last minute re-arranging.

I should have bathed Brigit tonight but I was honestly just too tired. So that means I'll get up early, bath, finish my laundry, pack and then load up and go again.

It's a.......

Saddle pad for my sidesaddle! I looked online for one and thought to myself "I bet I could make one of those easy enough". So I thought I'd give it a go. I really needed something for under my saddle to keep the linen cleaner. It's just a bit too long for a regular square pad so the very back of the panels were getting really dirty.
Started off with a bit of a template...


Doubled checked to make sure it would cover where it needed to.


Cut out the quilted fabric.


Then came the sewing and Ta da! The finished product.


Now to try it under the saddle. It fits really well! Yay!


I'm pretty pleased with how well that turned out.

Working on something.....

Hopefully I'll have it done tonight so I can upload some photos of it! I decided since I couldn't find one to buy, I'd put what skills I've got to work and try to make one!

Can you guess what I'm making?

Sew NOT as easy as I thought!

The sewing is coming along slowly. It seemed to take forever to get all of the pieces cut out for the vest pattern I bought and I'm still not entirely sure that I have the right size but I suppose we'll see!

I started actually trying to sew it all together last night and it's definitely a LOT more tricky than I thought it would be. I would be completely lost if it wasn't for the book of sewing my grandma gave me. "Staystitching" "Basting" and various other terms had me fairly LOST. And my first attempt at making the little triangles on the pattern match up with each other didn't go all so well. I did get a few pieces sewn together though and I *think* I've done it right....

Unforunately the sewing class I'm taking is soo painfully basic. I think I learned more last week from reading through my sewing machine's owner's manual. Tonight is the second class, hopefully it will go better. I think I mostly just need to understand what all of the different terms mean and I'm sure I can do it! We shall see though!