Tag: cat-art

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Heidi’s dress fitting and blueberry muffins

At first glance, it may appear from this photo that my kitty assistant from my last post has been magically transformed into a doll, but this is not the case. He would never fit in that dress.

This is Heidi, the tabby cat. She is Max and my first collaborative original folk art cat doll. I did the final fitting on her dress today. If you look closely, you will see the pins holding it together here. I sewed all the finishing details by hand. It’s a real challenge sewing little things on a machine. Now I have to get our Siamese’s sweater and skirt set assembled. It’s going to be fun photographing them together.


I also made my blueberry muffins that I had planned to make along with the last batch of muffins I made. These are from the same book, Deborah Madison‘s Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone. They are made from the Basic Buttermilk Muffins recipe. I added a cup of thawed blueberries and a teaspoon of orange zest. These are so good! I ate too many.

I had them with the orange I used for the orange zest for breakfast. Really good.

And thanks, Eric, for sharing an inspiring site…it’s our cosmos, with a new view of our universe every day. Check out Eric and Melissa’s music too. They’re putting together an LP of their own original songs. Pretty exciting. It’s great to see other people pursuing their dreams too 🙂

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Original art cat dolls in progress, and making progress in general

Original cat art dolls in progress, Elizabeth Ruffing, Max Bailey
These are the original cat art dolls that Max Bailey and I have been working on. The one on the left will be a Siamese cat, and the one on the right is a tabby cat. The tabby is very cute, but I don’t want to give too much away before her entire ensemble is complete. I am sewing her a dress based on Shirley Temple’s dress in her 1937 film “Heidi”. She has a beautiful pet goose companion as well.


Shirley Temple as Heidi in the 1937 filmI have so many little loose ends that I’m trying to tie up, and that includes making my way through the pile of books I intended to read. I’m still working on E. M. Forster. I’m reading A Passage to India right now.

A Passage To India movie stillI think that might be the only one of his novels I’ve read that hasn’t been turned into a movie starring Helena Bonham-Carter.

A Room with a View movie stillOther E. M. Forster novels I’ve recently read are Where Angels Fear to Tread, A Room with a View (scene from the movie above), and Howard’s End.

I’m sure none of these will compare to CSS: The Missing Manual, which I ordered today. That’s by Brian McFarland. It promises to be “crystal clear”. If I still can’t efficiently absorb CSS after that, I think I’m just going to live without it, knock on wood.

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Kitty Cat Dolls

I had a long sewing day the other day. I had a doctor’s appointment yesterday, and I wanted to make sure I wouldn’t hold Max up with our new folk art cat doll project, which we’ll put in our online doll gallery when she is finished. It was just a checkup. I was feeling fine. But, wouldn’t you know, I hurt my back while I was there, just picked something up the wrong way I guess, and I came out a crooked person. So ridiculous to hurt yourself at the doctor’s. Anyway, I am still a crooked person today, and am trying to find things I can do without moving around too much.

This is my other kitty doll, the real kind, fast asleep in his bed. Now that we have chilly weather, he has rediscovered his cat bed and is putting it to a lot of use. He purred himself to sleep while I was sewing.

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Santa would be proud

Thanks to Jennifer for including my “Lovely Lucy” in her “Santa would be proud” Etsy treasury today.

Linda and Lucy, sitting above, are both on the new web page on our Ruffing’s site that I made up for my soft dolls and toys. I’m always amazed to see how many of everything we seem to have once I make up the web pages for each category on our site. I’m still on my quest to organize and correct our website. I’m making progress a little at a time.

Today, I cut out five kitty cat doll bodies like “Bluebell and Bridget” the Siamese mom and kitten and “Daphne” the tabby cat folk art cat dolls below, for my upcoming collaborations with Max Bailey. I was aiming for two, but somehow I just kept going. I think it will be fun to work with someone else. I find it difficult to keep up my momentum when I am working alone. It’s easier when someone else is counting on you to do your part. Plus it’s fun to see what someone else adds to what you are doing. We are both pretty excited about it.

We had a couple of flurries here today and it was quite cold. My mom was ready to run out to look at the snow, but it was over before she even got to the door.