Hello Again My Friends

Yes, I figured out how to get back onto this blog! Huzzah!

Which is a very good thing because I have things cooking, and pictures of those things, and words to say about them.

Yes, I need a new saddle rack. Shhh.

I'm coming off of a really, really difficult and generally awful year that shoved all my plastic pony activities rudely to the side, and I'm just now entering a place where I'm ready to really dive back in with my whole self. I love making tack and I find a lot of pride and peace and contentment in the process, and it's all coming back to me like riding your most favorite comfy old bike.

Possibly the only perk of having my non-hobby life suddenly explode and force me to abandon it for a year is that I get to come back and have a perfect opportunity to start totally fresh. A lot of my tack making stuff got eaten by the craziness of said life, so I've had the pleasure (and pain) of completely restocking my entire inventory of materials and tools, totally redesigning my patterns, and setting up a new space.

(Yeah, it was that clean for about five minutes.)

Instead of taking on three or four commissions at once and trying to get them all done as swiftly as possible, I'm trying to focus on sleek design and high-quality pieces. I might take on one order later on this month or in early August, but for now I'm happy outfitting my own showstring, experimenting with new kinds of tack, and putting together sales pieces I'm really proud of.

In fact, I think three (?) of my sets are representing Stage Left at NAN this weekend, which is still mind-blowing for me. The demand for and positive reception of my tack has been the best welcome-back gift a girl could hope for. I finally raised my prices, to reflect the new quality of my work and to boost my "hourly wage" (cost of a set minus material expenses divided by the number of hours it took to build it) to closer to minimum wage. Well, now it's slightly above half of minimum wage, but I'll take it because tack making is definitely a better deal than working at McDonald's, and it's thankfully not my living income.

Anyway, the blog.

I'm thinking this place needs an update to match my updated tack and updated mentality. So expect some layout and color changes at some point.

For now, my goal is to post at least once a week with updates and progress pictures of what's on my desk, or tutorials or insights into tack making or my thoughts and hopes and dreams. It's gonna be kind of a mixed bag. The next few posts I have written are inspired by my recent need to completely repurchase all my materials, and it will cover what tools and supplies I like, where I get them, what I like and don't like about them, etc. I know a lot of tack makers have these kinds of posts, but I feel like the supply list is a little different for mini tack than it is for the big stuff. 

So. Look for those posts soon.

It's good to be back.