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Skin Horse - Rocking Horse


CollieFeathers

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Will post photos of this soon. Found a rocking horse in an antique consignment shop that is VERY old and in such great condition. Even the original saddle is on the horse WITH the stirrups and the leather colors. The bridle is gone, the tail (probably real horse hair) is gone and the mane is loved off. The ears are there though. The eyes are glass. The horse itself is covered in cow or goat skin with a pinto pattern and that is over a wood/carved frame with some unknown type of stuffing. I didn't see any bald spots or cracks or breaks at all on the skin/hair. The horse is on rockers but also on a base that has wheels so that it can come off the rockers and the children can ride it without staying in one place. This is all there, intact and WITH original colors/paint. My husband took measurements and cell phone photos which are distorted but I can work with them. We are going back tomorrow to move the "DO NOT RIDE" signs and get better photos.

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Meg, Are you going to make a scale miniature rocking horse?  This looks like a luxury rocking horse, I don't think I have ever seen one covered with animal furred skin.  Wow.  My Horse was one with springs... but my cousins had the real ones, so I was able to ride in my teenage years... Gosh I haven't been horseback riding in decades, that does sound like fun.  I know what you are saying about ears.  My husband carved one for our son when he was a toddler and one of the ears got damaged, but it was a solid piece of wood, so we are going to leave it as is... He is still fine tuning that horse, and our son is now an adult with his own son!  I enjoy antiquing and finding cool things to make in 1/12th scale.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Hi WeekendMiniaturist,

Your son's rocking horse sounds very nice. As far as projects go, I'm still working on knitting a baby blanket for my (now 35 year old) nephew. The bunnies on the first edge of the blanket are almost done. But "yes" I think I'll try to make this rocking horse in miniature and post my progress/process here. The antique store owner must wonder what in the world my husband and I are doing. We measure something and take a lot of photos. We should buy something at least for the privilege of touching the antiques. In a museum we couldn't do this.

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Do I see a scale miniature bed on the rockers of the horse?  I look forward to seeing the photos.  It will be fun; I wonder you can find furred leather... I know lots and lots of years ago, I bought a pair of summer sandals that seemed to be real animal fur on the topside of the leather, it was that time period when everything tiger and leopard and zebra was the fashion range... 

so when you are antiquing or at the resale shops you may want to look at the old purses to see if you find any, but at least this source may give you smaller pieces of leather vs. purchasing an entire hide.  An entire cow hide is huge; I have seen them in fabric stores; but I've never seen one with its animal hair.  

 

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Hi WeekendMiniaturist,

My plan is to flock the rocking horse so that the "fur" is to scale. When I get to that part of the project, I'll have to see what I'll do to make the seams where the leather is sewn on to the horse. Might cover a wood body in cloth (panty hose material maybe) and then flock over that. I ordered a book on rocking horses and their history and their makers, so will see if this type of horse is in the book.

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I think the wood by itself will give you better adhesive properties... I had this perfect poly based fabric that I JUST HAD TO USE on a sofa in one of Nancy Summer's classes, it was the perfect color and this perfect embedded design....and oh my goodness, it was impossible to glue... so I do suggest testing your methods on an ordinary piece of wood first and not your beautiful carved horse.  

(Nancy was really nice about it; knowingly smiling that it was going to be challenging, and that was the last time I ever used a poly fabric for anything in miniature.)

The rocking horse It is going to be a great project!

 

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  • 2 months later...

Collie Feathers, I was visiting one of my favorite fabric stores this past weekend in Chicago, enroute to the Fall Tom Bishop show to see the class prototypes, and I always look at the leather hides...  yes, I saw hides with hair...  and thought of your project.    Here is a link for full size cow hides...I think they are really cool for the child size application. 

https://shop.4hides.com/collections/brown-and-white

A recent episode of Antiques Roadshow was talking about how they made a rocking horse, like the one you photographed, and the appraiser indicated they were (my word) upholstered with a pony hide...

So making one in miniature, you obviously don't want an entire hide... but my store has leather cut offs, that they sell for about $15, you may find a remnant locally, or on eBay.

 

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