Weave a Wicker Fence

Here's a lovely landscaping idea from the Bloedel Reserve on Bainbridge Island in WA. Cut standard lengths of saplings 5 feet in length. Drive sapling stakes into ground every 4 feet. Weave cut lengths between stakes. I think Bloedel Reserved used cherry--could easily be wrong.

Felted Animals and My Knight in Shining Armor

Here's Mykisa (My knight in shining armor) that my friend Nancy brought me from Iceland. He is the protector of my zoo of felted animals that I have needle felted over the years. Don't worry Mykisa the tiger just wants to be friends.

My "Breeding" Farm Tolting Treasures

You guys may not know that I started my own "breeding farm" Tolting Treasures a few years ago.
The farm produces one or two quality, "registered" foals per year which are donated for auction by local equine organizations. I have found this is a great way to have all the fun of breeding and naming Icelandic foals without having to know anything about lineages, horse conformation, gaits, etc.


I have even "bred" a replacement for Blessi. The photo of Blessi with the electric blue hair extension is from when I was experimenting to see where I could put the hair extension to discover if the farrier would notice (hence Blessi's googly eyes). I ended up putting the extension in Blessi's tail and the farrier never noticed until I pointed it out.

Kimni from Tolting Treasures

Kathy offered me a trade---the honor of naming her youngest filly in exchange for one of my Tolting Treasure offspring to be auctioned off for the benefit of the club.

Meet Kimni from Tolting Treasures. This palomino filly with light amber eyes certainly lives up to her name of Humor. She tolts her way from emptying my tack box to pulling on Blessi's tail to chasing Chico the barn dog. Kimni will make you laugh with her antics. She is 5 gaited with a nice, high stepping tolt and animated trot. Kimni is weaned and introduced to a halter. She's coming to Kathy's stable next week. Just hide

any bright and shining things since she likes to go a vikring.

Materials: Teddy bear fur, leather, polyester stuffing, wool roving, vintage glass and rhinestone buttons (possibly 1920s from France) This toy is not for young children since roving is fragile and cannot be combed and removing an antique French button from a nose can be expensive.

Crocheting an Icelandic Horse Keychain Holder

Here are cute directions for crocheting an Icelandic horse to use as a key chain. Skip to the last 10 seconds of the video to see how cute the results are. Don't worry subtitles are in English.

I wish I had paid more attention when my Grandmother taught me to crochet. I wish I had spent more time with my grandparents period.

Printing Your Own Icelandic Horse for Christmas

Okari decided to draw her own Icelandic horse for Christmas using a 3D pen.  What a great project!  And I bet more little girls would become interested in science, technology, engineering and mathematics if they could get a kit to grow their own ponies for Christmas.

Painting Horse Portraits for KARE

My friend Judy and I attended a Kitsap Animal Rescue (KARE) workshop in which we had lessons
http://nwkare. org If you are in a different part of the country, please remember your local pet rescue.

on painting horse portraits from a local artist. Wine and snacks were served. What a fun way to expand one's artistic skills and benefit local animal rescues. Here's my painting. It's a bay Icelandic, not Blessi. We're going to more of these. Here's a link if you want to make a donation.

Icelandic Horses Help with Making Stepping Stones

My friend Judy and I were experimenting with mixing cement to make patio blocks with Celtic designs. We learned that men and women may have different definitions of the "consistency of pancake batter." We also learned that Icelandic horses are eternal optimists about the possibility of human activities leading to food.

Judy turned her mares Freya and Gloma loose together to run around the pasture. As shown by the photo, they stood by the fence line and watched us intently for 1 1/2 hours. Why? Because we were using old feed buckets and the bag of cement could have held grain, we were obviously stirring up some special treat for them.

We also discussed using horse hair as binder in the next batch. Around 8 years ago, if I remember correctly, the University of Pennsylvania was asking Icelandic horse owners to ship them bags of brushed out body hair since they were experimenting with horse hair in composite building materials and somehow Icelandic horse hair offered some sort of advantage.