Author: Elizabeth Ruffing

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I’ll Fly Away

A few sore fingers later…I finished hand quilting my fairy wings. BTW, I put sports tape on my fingertips when I hand sew, sometimes two layers thick, usually on my index and ring fingers of both hands. Sometimes I just switch the tape from one finger to the other on my left hand, depending on which I am using and what is more comfortable.

I have three leather thimbles I use in addition to the tape, when I can, but I find my precision is always somewhat diminished by the use of thimbles. I removed the plastic protectors from my leather thimbles to keep the needle from slipping and sewed them a little tighter to fit my fingers better. I put them over my taped fingertips. The tape cuts down on the pricking and the thimbles relieve some of the pressure of the needle which causes soreness. I did these wings with just the tape, which was less clumsy, but a little more painful. I don’t seem to take to using metal thimbles, however more of a charming they may be than sports tape.

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Hieronymus Bosch

At first glance I thought this looked like a pile of intestines, or a sketch for an Hieronymus Bosch painting, or maybe even a scene from CSI, the fairy version. It’s just a pile of doll parts, an exhausting pile of flower baby fairy bits and pieces. I always think it will be much easier to make the bodies up in groups, but that always leads to my thinking that I will never make one of these again! I still have six wings to hand quilt before I can even begin assembling them. I may go mad. I hope not, but I may.

In other news, I made a new banner for our eBay About Me page, and redesigned the page. I added new picture links to click on and some other content, like buyers’ feedback. It’s much brighter and more eye-catching now. Our eBay My World page now has a guestbook you can sign and a mini-blog that points to our Ruffing’s blog.

I’ve been fiddling with our Ruffing’s home page and our art doll gallery page as well. My goal is to get pictures of our available dolls up with links to their purchase information. I’m still in the process of editing Max Bailey’s kitty cat art doll photos, and I’m adding them as I go to our ruffingsartdolls Flickr album. I love “Crabby Alice” so much I can’t help hoping that she stays with us. The thought of her leaving makes me very sad.
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Three Little Kittens, One-of-a-kind Original Folk Art Cat Dolls by Max Bailey

Sunflower the Orange Tabby Kitten, Original One-of-a-kind Folk Art Doll Figurine by Max BaileyHere is a sneak peak at (from left to right) “Ginger and George“, “Crabby Alice and Ruthie“, and “Hedda and Hopper“, Max Bailey’s brand new one-of-a-kind original cat art dolls. We photographed them over the past two mornings, and they are very excited about making their Internet debut. We’ll be introducing them one at a time, to give each one due attention, in coming blog posts. I assure you… they can’t wait!

All they talk about is who looks the prettiest.

Sunflower the Orange Tabby Kitten, Original One-of-a-kind Folk Art Doll Figurine by Max BaileyElizabeth made us a new logo. It really needed some dolls! Much better now!

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Best if used before 1982

I woke up again not well, headache, stomachache, etc, and thought it might be nice to make peach muffins for breakfast. Without being truly awake, I just started to follow the Basic Buttermilk Muffin recipe in Deborah Madison’s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, using the Fresh Fruit Muffin variation. I remembered making these before and they were quite good, only I didn’t remember how long ago that was.

I scooped out some whole wheat flour (it was supposed to be whole wheat pastry flour…but that’s what I had) from I don’t know when. It smelled, um…a little dusty. I threw it out and found a “new” bag I must have gotten to replace the first one, but even that expired a year ago. Then there was the bag of peaches that I obviously hadn’t checked on in a week. Out of three, I got almost enough fruit. I threw out two bags of shriveled frozen fruit, two jars of old baking powder, didn’t even have enough vanilla, but I still went through with my plan to make muffins.
Well, I know they were good the last time I made them. Sorry to Deborah Madison…all the recipes I’ve tried from this book have been good. I just didn’t do her proud this time around. That’s all I’m going to say about that! 🙂

We did get some art doll photography time in yesterday and the day before. I’ve got to edit and upload Max Bailey’s new kitty doll photos to Flickr and then we’ll get them up over on the Ruffing’s blog.