Sunday, June 19, 2016

I know I haven't blogged since cancer and heart trouble interrupted my life, but I didn't realize how much time has passed.  Anyway, I'm back.

I just got home last night from my driving adventure to and from California.  My original goal was Cambria Pines Rug Camp in Cambria, CA.  The drive out was uneventful until I found myself lost on a winding road that ended at a gate with a sign saying, "STOP  Private Property  You can't get to the ocean this way".  I knew then that I was at least somewhere near the ocean.  That whole little trip took three hours, an hour and a half in and the same going out.  Every time the car was going faster than 10 mph I thought it was going to go over the edge - there was a steep drop-off on both sides.  The best part was when I stopped and a turkey ran across in front of me and then a deer trotted across the road behind me. About an hour later I arrived a day early at Cambria Pines Lodge.  I tried to camp at the state park, but it was full, so I slept in my car in the lodge parking lot.  Slept pretty well, too.

My teacher at camp was Monika Jones and she gets my high recommendation. I arrived at camp with a vague rug plan.  I had drawn two horses and thought they could go in a tall narrow rug that could fit on the wall with my rainbow bridge rug.  My explanation was vague and Monika didn't seem too interested - so I made a new plan.  I drew four new horses, each in a different part of training.  Each horse represented one of my late horses.  One in western pleasure training, one in dressage training, one going over cavaletti preparatory to learning to jump, and one bowing the way Chuck Grant taught me to teach my stallion, Dan Bally, to bow.  The four horses were quickly hooked and then Monika suggested I do the background in what she calls "messy hooking" and I call "antigodlin". June Mikoryak explained antigodlin to me by saying it was the way the old hookers did it and that was what they called it.  She said the loops should look like someone had dropped a handful of rice in the bottom of a bowl.
                                  Rainbow Bridge rug, unfinished


                                  Drawings for my original rug plan


                                  Horse training rug in process

I'll show/explain more in another blog - it's almost one AM and I'm ready to pet my dogs and go to sleep. I'd like to finish the training rug and then explain with photos how I developed ideas that resulted in the rainbow bridge rug.