art-dolls Archives - Page 54 of 91 - Ruffing’s Artist Dolls and Toys

Posted on August 20, 2010January 9, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Still organizing the past, hoping to catch up soon

I’ve been very busy trying to get our Ruffing’s site organized for a relaunch. I still have a whole lot of work to do. I think it took me six months to build the site in the first place, and it’s grown since then. I’m going through and sprucing up what I can for now. Once I make the switch to using WordPress for the site, the navigation will be a bit “mixed” for a while, with some pages leading to older pages, until I can get all the links updated. I hope to start that transition in early September. Crybaby, above, by Max Bailey, is one of our already adopted dolls who got her photos spruced up and resized today.

I have some sock kittens I was working on, but I’ve put them aside for the past week or so to concentrate on the web site. I turned my back just for a minute, before taking this photo, and a very real-looking sock kitten showed up to snuggle with this pink-striped one. My kittens must be very convincing. I hope to get back to more sewing soon!

I’ve also put my Apple One to One sessions on hold this week, so I can hurry my web site extravaganza along. The photo above was from my last class. I brought my camera along so they could give me some photography tips. I have homework! Needless to say, I haven’t had time to do it yet. Once I have a little more time to take some photos, I’ll explore my camera’s manual settings some more. That is something I never learned, and really need to.

I picked up Margaret Atwood’s Cat’s Eye at the library, weeks ago, hoping to get a chance to read more of it than I have. I was inspired to pick it up after taking one of those Facebook quizzes where I was told my writing style was more like hers than Stephen King’s, but only by a little.

Well, I admit I need a computer break right now. Have a great weekend!

Posted on August 3, 2010January 9, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Experiments in sewing, good and bad

I wanted to try something different with our next cat art doll, and so I took our original pattern, and a Brown House Dolls’ pattern, and morphed them together. I reduced the size of one, and then lay one over the other on our light box. Then I redrew the whole thing.

It took a lot of fiddling around, and pulling seams apart, and resewing them, to get the new kitty to sit. I wanted her tail to hang downward this time, so she would stand up nicely on a doll stand.

You can’t see her head because she doesn’t have one yet. She’s going to have a fully-sculpted head of paperclay. I glued a dowel into her neck opening, gathered stitching all around it, and pulled it tight. I’ll be passing the doll to Max Bailey, and our next collaboration will begin.

As I mentioned in my last post, my Viking Platinum sewing machine came back unclaimed, from its second trip for repair. After three tries, I finally got in touch with the seller who was going to take care of the repairs. He apologized, said he’d been out of the country again, and asked me to send the machine back, saying he’d help out with the postage. Well, I thought that over for a few days before deciding to give it another try. The only thing is, when I went to put the machine in a new shipping box, I noticed things falling out of it, and off of it. Above is the area over the spool holder, that has the stitch display. It fell right off.

That’s because there is a big chip right in the body of the machine. The back of the machine didn’t fare too well either. Below is the presser foot lever, cracked right off of the body. I packed it well, in its original styrofoam packing, and wrote “fragile” all over the box, which had no signs of damage. I talked to the Post Master about this, and she clued me in that there are no longer any parcel delivery services where packages are hand carried. Everything goes on a conveyor belt. Since the package was never claimed, and was missing for a month, who can guess what it went through.

This machine has made at least six trips, from one side of the country to the other, total, if you count the trip it made from the distribution center to the dealer. I think it just had enough. It was a sturdy machine, but I’m sure it wasn’t meant to be shipped back and forth across the country so many times. I hate to think what is going on in the inside. I hate that I can’t get it replaced, because it is discontinued, and I certainly can’t get it fixed, not in this shape.

I have to wait to see what the Post Office is willing to do, and I still have to contact the seller. This whole thing has been a nightmare. I should never have been asked to send it again for repair anyway. It should have been replaced a long time ago, when it started malfunctioning. The seller could have at least reserved a spare of this model for me, in case he couldn’t fix it, but he sold them all. He’s got a couple of similar, but newer models, but I’ve read they both have known issues. Had the authorized Viking repairman, to whom I initially took it, identified the problem correctly, and had the two faulty step motors just been replaced by the seller, it might have been fine. Instead it is a total mess, and I’ve spent the past ten months trying to get some resolution. Either way, it’s not like I’m going to get the machine I wanted. I’m astounded by how many people there are out there, doing really bad business, individuals, small business, and major corporations. All sizes. I’m just amazed, and I don’t even know what else to say about it.

Posted on June 23, 2010January 9, 2019 by Elizabeth Ruffing — 1 Comment

Every day is a trip down Memory Lane

I’m glad they are nice memories! This is the first doll Max and I made together, beyond just trading tips and art materials. Her name is Suzie. Our next collaborative art dolls were cats and a bunny. I’ve been working on re-editing more past doll photos and web pages and blog posts for our Ruffing’s site and Suzie was one of the dolls on my list today. I’m making headway, and things are looking good for our new-and-improved blog. I’m going to add as much as I can to it in the next two months, and then I plan to relaunch it on our home page.

Our little garden gave us a yellow squash, a tomato, and some basil. I added some onion, and stir-fried them all together with some extra virgin olive oil. Once again, I waited too long to pick the squash, and the skin was a bit tough. I have to get the hang of harvesting. They still tasted good, with some salt and pepper, over fettuccine.

I’ve now seen New Moon, and I’m ready for Eclipse. I’m looking forward to it. Maybe I’ll even get to see that part of the series on the big screen.

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.