Little Cowgirl Book Club: I Wonder Why Horses Wear Shoes

This book is from the great Kingfisher I Wonder Why series (we've got tons of them) - basically they're a sort of kid's FAQ picture book; each book collects 30 or so interesting questions on a subject and answers them. This book covers all sorts of horse questions, including "Which horses do cowhands ride?"; "When did people first tame horses?"; "and of course, "Why do horses wear shoes?"
The Little Cowgirl loves these books, so this one was a shoe-in.  (Har-har.) Highly recommended!

Check it out on Amazon; or find it at your local library!

Sew Western! Another real-life handmade 1940s shirt

This time it's Simplicity 3054, which I do own. This one came out in 1949 and is quite a bit simpler than McCalls 1332, it's just your basic yoked Western shirt with "smile" vent pockets and, of course, optional horsehead embroidery. Here's my copy (note the original owner's opinion!):

And here it is actually made up!

The maker only did the horses on the yoke; they left the triangles off the vent pockets and I think they may have put the cuffs on backwards, there's something really odd looking going on there. (Note that they did put the sheaf-of-wheat motif on the cuffs.) Still, it's an impressive amount of work!

Big thanks to Mark of  Dead 'n Gone Vintage (Firefly Vintage on ebay) for letting me use his images! You can see the shirt  here until it sells.