It's another day of native halters, still the same group of six.  The bright blue one is really taking off.  When I'm working on tack I constantly have to remind myself "less is more, less is more" and then I was trying to stick to the more authentic look, but I just *had* to let myself put rhinestones on at least one of them.  This one has really developed into something completely different that I originally intended, but I'm having fun with it.  It is nearly finished, I just need to make some cowrie designs, and add a few finishing touches on it.  The brow-band slides up and down so you can position it on the horse's face just right, because the headstall is adjustable and as you're lengthening for bigger heads you want to be able to move that brow band as needed.  The side tassel is attached directly to the brow band so it can move up and down also.  

I'm just starting to piece together the medium blue halter (pictured next to the bright one above).  This is the only one that I have cowries done for so I should have just started with that one, but the bright one is one of my favorite colors and I just kept going with it!

After a four year hiatus I completely forgot how time-consuming cowries really are.  I use a dinner plate to cure my cowries in the stove and I had intentions of doing cowries for all 8 halters last night, but it ended up taking me two hours to do just the one!  Could be thanks in part to Dancing With The Stars being on last night...distracting, but so fun to watch!  And it's really hard to stay seated because I just want to get up and dance! Yeah!

This is my "assistant" BooBoo.  She likes to be in my face and on my lap just steady so she has to have her own chair to sit on, right next to me while I work.  I feed her fancy feast and she gets really fancy and crosses her paws all the time, and yes I know that's why! (j.k. but it sounds funny!)  She was particularly interested in my work today so I tied a piece of ribbon to her chair for her to chew on instead.

The weather here is very cold, dark and windy today and they are talking snow.  I'm constantly cold!  So far in northern MN we have had one oddball snowstorm that took place right at the beginning of October, but the snow didn't last.

My back is killing me right now so I'm just taking a break.  I think I need to consider getting a better chair to sit in if I'm going to sew this many hours every day.  I'm feeling a little tired just thinking about how many cowries I intend to sculpt today!  LOL!  With work this detailed it's easy to get a little burnt out on the same project, but hopefully I'll be wrapping some of these halters up today, and the rest of them tomorrow!  Wish me luck!

Thanks for reading and happy collecting everyone!

Melissa