Horse head cake

We were having friends drop by sometime and got a call about 5:30 or so in the evening asking if they could come the next day. I wanted especially to do a horse/pony head cake when they came, but I have never done any cake decorating before and had no idea how it would turn out. Forgetting, or not caring, that I was not finished with supper, I got up and after some indecision decided to try it. There would be no practice ahead of time and some of our guest were excellent cake decorators. (I have seen pictures of one of their wedding cakes with the most beautiful icing roses I have ever seen.)


So, I baked a cake in my yet un-tried horse pan and was thankful that it came out of the pan without sticking to the bottom. I could use plain powdered sugar icing for the white, mix in some cocoa for the brown, but what could I use for the halter? I could think of no natural color on hand, so I dug through a drawer and found some really old (like maybe ten years) food coloring we had. I did not like the thought of using food coloring, old or not, but could think of nothing else and figured a couple of drops of blue would not kill us.

Then I started my first time attempt at cake decorating. We had some icing tips in the cabinet so I chose the ones that looked like might achieve what I wanted. I had an awful time trying to keep the tip from getting squeezed off the end of the bag. (I asked my friend about it the next day and she told me I could have put the tip inside the bag. I should have called and asked her that night!) Doing the cake was partly fun and certainly an experience. The icing kept wanting to squeeze out of the top of the bag, so there was chocolate cake icing all over the counter, my hands were covered in it, and it was dropping on the just mopped floor. But by a couple of minutes after 10:00 P.M. I had the cake finished, not professionally, but at least presentable. It did not take us near as long to eat it as it did for me to make it!

We are not health nuts, or we would not even eat such a cake, but I and my friends tend to prefer natural foods. We were discussing using the old blue food coloring when one of them said it couldn’t have gone bad that coloring was too synthetic to go bad. The stuff is actually bad when it is brand new. It seemed everyone was eating around the blue halter to avoid the poisoning blue dye! Eventually the whole cake was eaten though, and as far as I know we all lived to tell about it.

Young girl’s rocking horse skirt

This is a very simply made gored skirt with an elastic waist. Elastic waist band measures 27 inches. Overall length of the skirt is 29 inches. The bottom has rocking horses and other toys making it a cute skirt for a little girl. $9.

Horse back riding - in skirts

These photos were taken at Southern Cross Guest Ranch in Madison, GA. 

More pictures may be posted on my “Goatgirl’s blog” later. I made my riding jacket and skirt as well as Dave’s coat and trousers. Kayla made her skirt. She also braids western leather work such as: bolos, key chains, whips, and other things not posted on her webpage. Dave does blacksmith work making: dinner bells, hooks, fire pokers, and other neat things like this horse head letter opener.

Horseshoe n’ flowers pillow case

I took some of the left-over flower and horse border of this bedspread and made some pillow cases. The picture does not show up as bright and pretty the flowers really are against the white background. Even though it was made to match the horse bedspread, the purple flowers match rather well with the purple in my flying geese quilt.

Horse n' flowers bedspread

I recently finished the top to this bedspread and now I’m not sure how to finish it. I like the horses jumping through the horseshoe and the beautiful, lovely flowers all around with plenty of white. The white areas would look to nice to be quilted, but I’m not too eager to hand quilt such a mass of space right now. I thought about tie quilting it, or just hemming the edges and leaving it as a thin bed sheet. If I did though, I am not sure what  to do with all the raw edges of the seams of each block. For now, I’ll leave it as it is until I decide.

Western glass etched glasses

Here is my latest western themed project. Glass etched western glasses. Each glass has a different picture: a bucking bronco, an Indian chief, a saddle, a steer, a cowboy sitting on the fence rail, a desert seen, and a cowboy on a horse.

Silver heart spur bookends

Several years ago I bought a pair of silver heart spurs to make western bookends. Just this afternoon, I finally got around to drilling the holes and putting them together. It is rough cut wood and slightly bowed. The spurs are rustic and the hearts have already started to turn. It does not have the shiny polished look of the set I made for my friend. Still, it has the silver hearts and what girl doesn’t like hearts?

Yes, I know, western bookends and I have no horse books between them. While I don’t own many, I’ve read some of the best - John Lyons’ training books and Monty Robert’s Join-Up and his Shy-Boy, the story of the mustang tamed in the wild.