Me and My Studio Archives - Page 12 of 34 - Ruffing’s

Posted on December 12, 2010January 9, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Toy riot

This is a glimpse into my workroom, showing how it has looked over the past few days. I’ve been in a whirl of fabric and thread and stuffing, surrounded by toys in all stages of completeness.

All my little sock kittens went off to new homes, all but one kitty angel that I will show you later.

I miss them and need to make some more. My Hug Me Toads are hopping off too. And, there has been an onslaught of slugs.

This fourteen-inch slug is on his way to Australia. I have a big bunch more, in all shapes and sizes, that I’ll be working on this week, so they can be off before for Christmas.

Piles of personalized hang tags are accumulating, and more toys keep joining the ranks. I am sewing all day, each day, for the most part. I’m still on schedule, and every toy that has been ordered as of this morning, is either all done, or in progress. I’m currently on about a two-week turnaround time for making the custom toys. Almost all of my ready-made toy animals have been adopted, but I will try to add a couple more to my Etsy shop, if I can, before Christmas. I have some things I have to do this weekend, along with celebrating my birthday, and so I may run out of time.

My toys and prints have made it into quite a few Etsy treasuries over the past couple of weeks, and this one below made it to the Etsy front page. I saw the number of views rushing up on that listing, along with the number of hearts on it, and thought something must be up. I missed seeing it on the front page, but the curator told me about it later. I appreciate everyone who features my work. It’s a very nice compliment. I put the recent treasuries in a set on my Flickr page.

It seems like weeks now that I, at long last, got myself a Wacom tablet. I haven’t yet had the time to plug it in. I picked up a bundle with Corel Painter, which I have hardly tested out yet either. I tried the tablet during Apple class, but I haven’t had time to get to one of those lately either! I was thoroughly uncoordinated with the pen and tablet. I am going to need a lot of practice, once the holidays have passed.

I think one of my first projects will be to play with my hang tags for my toys. I am wishing I’d made up some kind of gift certificates or e-gift cards to send out for people who are shopping late for the holidays too, so they could pre-order slugs for gift recipients. Those are small projects, but I’m not stepping away from the sewing long enough to do them at the moment. I wish I’d been a little more on top of things this season, but I am more prepared than I was last year. The holiday panic is subsiding, and being replaced by fatigue. My mom is giving me a hand, cutting out eyeballs, and doing this and that. I’d be panicked and fatigued at the same time, without her help. Thanks, Mom!

As always, I have my kitty helper too. He is also invaluable.

Posted on July 11, 2010January 9, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Hybrid Slugs

I was asked if I could make a fleece Super Slug, and I wasn’t entirely sure I could. Mixing stretchy fabrics with non-stretchy fabrics seemed like asking for trouble. I usually make my “Hug Me! Slugs” out of either fleece or cotton, but I’d never tried both together. I used a mini iron to fuse the “super” emblem onto his chest, and then machine appliquéd it in place. I did the same for his eyes. I wish I had an even smaller mini iron, for the smaller slugs. I can’t touch the iron to the fleece, because it could melt, which makes the process a bit tricky.

I hand-basted his cape in place before sewing it, but really had no problems overall. This opens up some new possibilities in my toy-making. More hybrid slugs are soon to be born.

First, I have to finish these. I’ll be hand sewing their eyes and hearts and smiles.

Speaking of smiles, my fur-kid here needs to have his worked on this week. He wasn’t happy at all about people trying to look at his teeth, but he might need a couple of them taken out. I’m nervous about this, but hopefully all will go great and he’ll feel much better afterward.

Posted on June 21, 2010January 9, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Long ago and far away

Serenity Starr, Painted Cloth Original Angel Art Doll by Elizabeth Ruffing

Maybe it wasn’t so far away, or even so very long ago, but I thought you might like to see my first art doll. This is “Serenity Starr“. I made her back in November of 2005.

Serenity was an original, one-of-a-kind, hand-painted angel, with hand-quilted wings, and a handmade wooden stand that slipped in between her body and her wings. My friend, Miko, wrote a cute poem for her, which I printed on her hang tag, and after that I tried my best to write poems for each of the five angels in the set! That was a challenge! I started getting a little redundant with my poetry ideas. Those are all on the new-and-improved blog too.

By the way, this is what can happen to your hair when you are working from home on your web site. I caught a glimpse of this in the reflection on our monitor, and realized I probably never even combed my hair today. On the other hand, this is a very easy to maintain style. Just fall asleep without completely drying your hair, and voila…no effort needed in the morning.

Posted on June 14, 2010January 9, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Hiding from the heat

I have some toys, dolls, and figurines to show you, but honestly, I am just too hot to go out there and photograph anything today. I think it is about 97 degrees today, and humid. I’ve been moving slowly, even with the air conditioning. I’ve been inside, for the most part, sewing, but when I can’t see so well, I go out on the porch to hand sew, while I melt.

I’m still studying Aperture, in Apple class. I’m learning adjustments right now. I come back and experiment on myself, or rather photos of myself, like these. I rather liked this one, for it’s dramatic look. It reminds me a bit of an old-time vampire movie.

Any time we take photos of me, I seem to go through the same repertoire of expressions. Some of them are funny. I usually pick out the friendly ones to use, but I also have cranky, aloof, and goofy expressions, which appear just as often. I played around with some of those photos too, but for here, I’ll stick with the friendly ones, so as not to spook anyone.

Our kitty’s anole friend still comes to visit, but in the heat, Mr Kitty has taken to taking naps. He’ll say hello, and then go pass out on the bed. The poor anole climbs all over the window, looking in, trying to get his attention.

Our vegetables are continuing to grow and ripen. I had to do something with this great big zucchini (those are a regular-sized steak knife and a large red flour canister for scale) before it grew to be Woody-Allen-Sleeper sized. That’s some giant parsley I picked too, next to the zucchini.

Fortunately, I grabbed them just in time.

I picked more parsley than I really needed, and added a can of diced tomatoes (the ones in the garden weren’t ready yet), and some sliced onion.

I fried them all in some extra virgin olive oil, and put them over fettuccine.

I think next time, I will cut back on the parsley and chop it up more finely. I’d also scoop out the seeds from the zucchini. This one had rather large seeds, due to its size. I’ve made fried zucchini slices before and not even noticed the seeds. So, I guess it depends on how long you wait to pick yours. Those Sleeper-sized ones though…I’d definitely scoop those out!