Beguiled

The past few weeks have been relatively quiet on the flea market/thrift shop circuit; just a few odds and ends, a magnificently garish late 1960s/early 1970s quilt top (with frog-themed fabric!) and these guys:

A Walker-Renaker Elephant and the 1999 Sears Wishbook Mustang. Both are damaged; the Mustang will be heading for the body box, but the Elephant will fit right in with my small, ragtag group of busted-up flea market Walker-Renaker rescues.

I’ve been good about holding off on retail horse purchases – yes, I (painfully) had to pass on the BreyerFest Leftover Kaalee – but the upcoming Brick and Mortar Special, a Liver Chestnut Loose-maned Shannondell named Markus, might break my resolve.

I really adore my BreyerFest Vahana; he’s going to be one of my “office horses”, once I get it reorganized. I don’t think he’d mind having a shaggy friend to hang out with!

If I happen to be near one of my local Flagship stores come mid-September I’ll probably pick one up, but I’m not going to go out of my way to get him. That seems like a reasonable compromise, yes?

Incidentally, this year at BreyerFest I helped out in the Hands-On Hobby booth, and I actually got to spend quite a bit of time with Shannondell’s “mom” Karen Gerhardt, who gave a sculpting demonstration on Friday and Saturday.

I showed up early on Friday to finish setting up my history display, and she had shown up early as well, so there were the two of us hobby “lifers” just hanging out backstage together at BreyerFest, no big…

It was a lovely, quiet moment before the chaos began.

History dork me was super-excited to see that she had brought the original cast of the Shannondell, too. I got to hear her talk about his creation and history, and issues with the casting/moldmaking process.

The best part was that Karen seemed genuinely (and rather adorably) surprised when I told her how popular the mold was, and how certain I was that Vahana was going sell out every time slot.