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Sixteen slugs and a sock hippo

I’m pretty proud of myself this week. I actually sewed up all sixteen of those toys I cut out and fused. It’s been too unpredictable outside to get some better photos, but here is my new batch of “Hug Me! Slugs”, all lining up for their school photos. Maybe tomorrow, kids.

I also made “Hilda the Hug Me! Hippo”, my sock hippopotamus. She’s quite a bit larger than the slugs I made this week. I keep picking her up and carrying her around. She just asks and asks. So, what can I do?

We watched a cute movie this weekend, Lost in Austen. For anyone who enjoys Jane Austen, it is a miniseries takeoff of the novel and a entertaining spin on the miniseries Pride and Prejudice. A modern woman finds a door in her bathroom that leads directly into the Bennets’ house, switches places with Elizabeth, and inadvertently disrupts the order of everything. They must have cut out this scene from the version we watched:

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Emily and Edwin make their first appearance

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.

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Sock Kitty!

I love Sock Kitty! I also miss Sock Kitty because he is a birthday gift for a friend.

Sock Kitty is made from a sock stuffed with Polyfil. His eyes, nose, and hearts are polar fleece, embellished by hand with embroidery floss in a blanket stitch. I used embroidery floss to hand stitch his whiskers and his smile too. His ears are lined with cotton batik fabric.

Sock Kitty is nice and squishy. His paws even have little toes I sewed with upholstery thread.

He is a perpetually happy cat. I am going to have to make him a sibling to keep for myself, a twin perhaps.

In other news, I am tossing around the idea of collaborating with Max on some folk art cat dolls, the dressed and jointed kind with the sculpted faces. I’ve been spreading myself too thin for a long time, and I think if we put our efforts in the same direction, we both might be more productive. Collectively, we have at least three doll sizes, and some possible variations as to type of critter. We are terribly behind with a backlog of dolls waiting to go on our website right now. So, that is the first thing to resolve.

Over the past year, I spent a lot of time trying to have a separate business from our family business, in large part to accommodate someone else’s desire for me to have a separate income, but that has been like trying to spin twice as many plates in the air as I was already spinning. The end result was only that I had to neglect one business to spend time trying to get the other off the ground. All in all, I only got more behind and more scattered, and then we all ended up behind. Now I need to get us all back on track. My desire to please other people gets me in trouble sometimes, and really, as I’m sure we all know…if you need to knock yourself out to please someone else, it never turns out to be worth it. Please yourself, and surround yourself with people who appreciate you for who you are and who want you to be happy.

On a lighter note, is anyone else already hitting the Halloween candy? I am! Naughty 😉
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Socks and sock doll doodles

While waiting for my mom at the dentist’s this morning, I drew out some ideas for some sock creatures. Yesterday, I picked up a variety of colored socks. I later wished I had grabbed some stripes or patterns too, but I was thinking of incorporating some quilting cottons into my designs. I’ll see what happens once I start playing around with them.

This afternoon, we edited some more doll photos and got Max‘s next original one-of-a-kind folk art dog doll ready for the Internet. We posted her over on the Ruffing’s blog first. She’s a very sweet Cocker Spaniel named Charlotte. Be sure to go have a look.

From now on, we’ll post announcements of new original art dolls on the Ruffing’s blog, and new soft dolls and toys on this blog, as they become available. You will be able to find all of our available dolls and toys in our online doll gallery, at any time.

I’m still way behind setting up a shopping cart on the Ruffing’s site. What is done seems to work, but I made a lot of changes to the pages that I haven’t uploaded yet. Fall always seems to catch me off guard. No matter how many plans I make, I am never ready when the season gets here.