I probably should post this, since it came up on the tatting lists. This is Black Beauty. He won "Best of Show" at the Los Angeles County Fair last summer. He is the third horse I have made, the first two being Silver and Mr. Ed. I would post them too except I don't seem to have any pictures of them at the moment. Once I do you would be able to see the evolution between Silver (the first on I made) to Black Beauty (the last and best so far). I need to do 3 more to complete the set.

The base pattern is from Ineke Kuiperij's "Nostalgie" (carousel) book. I just had to embellish it a bit though. When I got the pattern, I couldn't understand why the tail and mane weren't tatted, so I designed my own. After seeing a European carousel, I now understand why. They use horsehair tails on their horses, duh. I also added a flower to the rear as both a decorative element and a stabilizing element. I some redesigning on the head to make it a bit longer. That gave me a bit more room to play with decorative bridals and reigns. And after a bit of creative thinking, I managed to get colored hoofs in there too.