Meet Emily, Max Bailey‘s and my latest one-of-a-kind, original, folk art ginger tabby cat doll.
Emily’s elephant friend is named Edwin. Emily is hand sculpted from paperclay on 100% cotton cloth, and is button jointed at her shoulders. Edwin is made of wood. Both are hand painted in acrylic paints and varnished with matte varnish.
As the story seems to go of late, Emily is still waiting for the rest of her outfit to be sewn. Edwin is just waiting for his wheels to start rolling. He’s very patient, which is good, because they don’t actually roll. Fortunately, he has a string to help pull him along.
We managed to re-photograph Max’s three new kitty figurines this afternoon. After some photo editing, color-correcting, cropping, etc, we’ll get to work on their web pages over on the Ruffing’s site. The figurines will eventually appear on the art doll figurines page, and Emily and Edwin will find their way over to the jointed cloth and paperclay dolls page of our online doll gallery…after Emily gets some clothes on.
I got this fun book in the mail, Stray Sock Sewing by an artist named Daniel. I’m crazy about it. It’s full of the cutest original sock creatures I think I’ve seen. There are plenty of sewing tips, and even instructions for making a few of your own. I’m getting so many ideas. I drew out some sketches when I got up this morning. I had a bunch of designs I had drawn, while waiting for my mom at the dentist’s, a few months ago, but I wasn’t entirely sure how best to construct them. So, this is great. Definitely enough information for me to spring off in my own directions. The eight creatures he shows you how to make would make super gifts too. So adorable. Love it.
The book is published by North Light Books, which has put out very nice art instruction books for years. I have quite a few painting and drawing books from them as well. I just read that the book club they’ve had for as long as I can remember is closing, but it sounds like they will still be offering their books through some special offers, in addition to still offering them through retailers. I got my copy of Stray Sock Sewing through Crafter’s Choice Book Club. They have some good deals sometimes, but I have trouble remembering to tell them not to send that monthly selection, even with an email reminder. I’m happy with the books I’ve gotten from them though, and I was glad to find they had this one.
Everyone has just been lining up, waiting to be photographed over here.
But, first there were doll stands that needed to be painted,
supplies that needed to be organized,
and a dresser, in which the dolls are now napping, that needed to be assembled.
What a lot of hardware! I’m glad it was so neatly laid out.
This ratcheting screwdriver with interchangeable bits helped me a lot. It’s a WorkForce 21-Piece Ratcheting Screwdriver Set that originally came from Home Depot some time back. Too bad I didn’t notice the ratcheting feature until I was putting together the last drawer. You don’t have to let go of the handle to keep turning it, which is pretty cool. Like I said before, you never know what handy things you will find in our closets.
More lovely azaleas came into bloom. I ran out to photograph them.
The ducks waddled over, all curious about the whole idea of my photographing azaleas, or maybe they just thought I had snacks.
Nope, sorry ducks, just azaleas.
