{"id":243,"date":"2024-12-23T11:55:50","date_gmt":"2024-12-23T11:55:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/?p=243"},"modified":"2024-12-23T12:06:01","modified_gmt":"2024-12-23T12:06:01","slug":"himalaya","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/?p=243","title":{"rendered":"Himalaya"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>The Himalayas, a mountain range in Asia. Pointed peaks cleave the brilliant blue sky. Getting to those peaks is a challenge even for the most professional mountain climbers. However, that is not the Himalaya I&#8217;ll be talking about today. My Himalaya is just as high, just as magical, but just a little more fluffy. The Himalaya I am talking about is a vaulting horse!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started to make this as a gift for someone in my vaulting team. The idea had been slumbering in my mind for ages, but now the deadline arose and I had to get started. The plan was easy: make Himalaya out of wool using the needle felting techniques. This was the fourth piece of needle felting I did in my entire live, so I was improvising a lot. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I started of by making an iron frame, which would later give me the opportunity to create the perfect horse shape. After that I wrapped pipe cleaners around the iron to allow for the wool to bind to the frame. <\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignleft size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"576\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00023-576x1024.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-265\" style=\"aspect-ratio:0.6666666666666666;object-fit:cover;width:192px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00023-576x1024.jpeg 576w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00023-169x300.jpeg 169w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00023-768x1365.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00023-865x1536.jpeg 865w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00023-1153x2048.jpeg 1153w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00023-scaled.jpeg 1441w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 576px) 100vw, 576px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Now the basis was done I could start with the real felting. I added pieces of white merino wool after another to build up shape. To make sure the wool sticks in place, you only need a needle felt needle. The small points on the needle will make sure the wool intertwines with the rest of the wool. In this way a solid shape will arise. Slowly but steadily the shape would arise and turn from a greyhound into a real horse. Along the way I decided it would be beautiful if the horse seemed to be cantering. So, I positioned the legs accordingly and went on. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>You must not underestimate the time needed to build up shape, because it is the most important step. If the shape isn&#8217;t right the horse will look silly. It can help to look at photo&#8217;s to study the shape of an animal.<\/p>\n\n\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright is-resized\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image.jpeg\" alt=\"This image has an empty alt attribute; its file name is image00022-768x1024.jpeg\" style=\"width:159px;height:auto\"\/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>When you are fully satisfied with the shape you can continue onto the coloring. I started off with a thin layer of grayish-brown wool. After that I added a more orange-brown layer, and in the end I attached a lighter brown color. All these different color layers together create a beautiful, living colored coat. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Along the way I added manes, a tail, and black pins for the eyes. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I am very satisfied with the result, and had never expected it to turn out this well. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I honestly love this technique, because it is so basic, it requires no more than a needle-felt needle, wool and iron wire, but it leads to such a beautiful result. Besides, you never know what you will end up with. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"768\" src=\"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00017-1024x768.jpeg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-259\" srcset=\"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00017-1024x768.jpeg 1024w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00017-300x225.jpeg 300w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00017-768x576.jpeg 768w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00017-1536x1152.jpeg 1536w, https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/12\/image00017-2048x1536.jpeg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Himalayas, a mountain range in Asia. Pointed peaks cleave the brilliant blue sky. Getting to those peaks is a challenge even for the most professional mountain climbers. However, that is not the Himalaya I&#8217;ll be talking about today. My Himalaya is just as high, just as magical, but just a little more fluffy. The&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":259,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_kad_post_transparent":"","_kad_post_title":"","_kad_post_layout":"","_kad_post_sidebar_id":"","_kad_post_content_style":"","_kad_post_vertical_padding":"","_kad_post_feature":"","_kad_post_feature_position":"","_kad_post_header":false,"_kad_post_footer":false,"_kad_post_classname":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[42],"tags":[48,44,47,43,49,46,45],"class_list":["post-243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-needle-felting","tag-building-shape","tag-himalaya","tag-iron-wire","tag-needle-felting","tag-new-technique","tag-wood","tag-wool"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=243"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":270,"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/243\/revisions\/270"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/suzieshorses.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}