We Made a Horse

After watching a movie about horses, our son wanted to make a horse that he could ride.  I offered a stick horse from the toy store.  He really wanted to make one.




We looked at some pictures of handmade hobby horses on the web, and went to the craft store for some supplies.  He knew the colors he wanted and had an idea of what it should look like and an assumption that I could just make this happen.







So we gave it a try.  I traced a Christmas stocking onto brown paper and then cut and re-taped where I thought there should be more angle for the neck.  Then I added some more paper to make a longer neck.






I had to lay out the accessories to convince myself this was going to look like a horse.

I waited for his nap time and then got to work cutting and basting.  

I used my computer  to play with some shapes and cut the ears and eyes and used a button for the nostril on each side.

When he woke he wanted to know if he could ride his horse.  

It wasn't long before we were able to put the head on the stick and he could test drive it.

Mason really enjoyed stuffing the head himself.
I had to help stuff it tight and make it firm.

I watched several how to videos online to find out the best way to secure the head to the stick.  We sawed several notches, made a padded pouch at the top of the stick and then secured the bottom of the horse with thread in the notch.

I waited to stitch the ears on after the head was stuffed.  

If I made another one, I might try stitching them on 

before sewing the head pieces together.  

The ears and the bridle were the hardest things to get just right.

Now we have one happy cowboy.  Yee ha!!!