softies Archives - Page 4 of 23 - Ruffing’s Artist Dolls and Toys

Posted on November 28, 2015December 29, 2020 by Elizabeth Ruffing — 1 Comment

A teal slug and my Spoonflower eyeball experiment results

I have a new teal fleece Hug Me Slug joining my other stuffed animal plushies over our shop. I forgot to mention before that I now have the domains hugmeslug.com and hugaslug.com pointing to put website, so it will be easier to find us.

We’ve been hanging around home, avoiding the shoppers. Jojo did her own shopping and got all the cat toys, while Henrietta was occupied.

I hurried in to the vet to get Oliver Bunny his checkup and nail trim, before the traffic at the shopping centers started. He met a girl bunny named Daphne in the adoption room there.

Daphne

She liked him and nibbled on her cage to try to touch noses with him. He was hesitant. The vet asked if they made googly eyes at each other, and I told him she did, but he was nervous. He said, “Poor Daphne. She came on too strong.” Oliver finally settled back in by TV time. I told him I was sorry. He had the same reaction to the other two girl bunnies there, who were there the last time too. He doesn’t mind if big fat Santana jumps in my lap with him, or if Henrietta props her leg on his back while she gives herself a bath, but he isn’t sure about bunnies.

Santana is healing up and in a great mood. He appears to be enjoying the cats being closed up next door. Their new cat sitter showed up, which was a relief. I was afraid the same kid who didn’t take care of them before might be not taking care of them again. This one seems to be doing a good job of showing up daily.

So…I mentioned a couple of posts ago that I ordered a color map of Minky fabric from Spoonflower and then a fat quarter with my toy eyeballs printed on their Minky as well.

I’ll repeat those two photos here, above, to be more organized. As I said before, the fabric itself was nice and soft, and the colors were pretty. But I was a little worried about white showing through since the black didn’t cover the fibers all the way down to the base. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out for my eyeballs, as you can see below. The white showed through as I sewed, and the black edges of my circles got mixed with white. Everything was wobbling and mixing. (I used Photoshop to paste my eyeballs photos onto a clearer backgrounds, and so the edges shown are actually cleaner and neater than they were in reality.)

At first, I tried sewing the eyeball with no Wonder-Under paper-backed fusible stabilizer on the Minky, which made a bigger mess, since the outside edges were moving. I thought maybe if I were to stabilize the fabric, I might have better results.

It looked a lot better, sewing with the Wonder-Under, as you can see above, or at least it did with just the white.

I fused a printed eyeball onto fabric with Wonder-Under, and you can see above that the black fibers were not making an even line and the white ones weren’t either. That is just the nature of the pile being too long for my project.

Oddly, the eyeballs that were printed along the edge of the fat quarter were ovals instead of circles. The Minky is a knit and it must have stretched along the edges while going through the printer.

When I tried sewing the fused eyeballs down, I had the same problems, with the white and black getting mixed up and everything losing its shape. The eyeball above was a slightly smaller eyeball, which came out even worse. I tried to accent the white dot in the pupil with embroidery floss, but that didn’t work.

The Minky fabric might work well for a blanket, but I think anything stuffed tightly, or with smaller seams, or with top stitching would probably have white showing through the colors.

I thought I might have better luck using a lower-pile fabric and I chose Spoonflower’s Faux Suede to try. I used the stabilizer again, and it came out pretty neat. I thought I might get lucky this time.

Unfortunately again, there was a problem. Above are my eyeballs printed on Minky, with a skein of black DMC floss for comparison. You can see they are close to black.

Above are my same eyeballs printed on Faux Suede, and you can see they are not black, but charcoal gray. My black in my file was hex color #000000, black as black can be.

The colors on my colored eyeballs, below, came out well, but the blacks were still gray. By the way, if you are making a file to print, be sure to use the type of file in the resolution you need at the beginning, so color information doesn’t get thrown out when you make the file smaller. Spoonflower uses 150 dpi. I used 150 dpi (ppi) and a .png file. I tried a .jpeg and kept having issues with my hex color #’s changing after I uploaded my files. I did double check my colors by downloading my files from the site, after uploading them to the site, to make sure my colors were the same. They were.

I thought there might be a mistake and wrote to Spoonflower, but there was no mistake. They just can’t print black on some fabrics, and have trouble printing black in general. They said their fabrics that get blacker blacks are Basic Cotton Ultra, Satin, Performance Knit and Performance Pique, but none of those are fuzzy like my toy eyes, plus the edges would fray on them if I were to try to sew them on by hand with a blanket stitch, as I do.

They were nice and sent me a refund on everything after I returned the fabrics to them. I only had to cover the postage to send the fabrics back. They also sent everything out right away, which was great. It was just disappointing about the blacks. I am going to try Fabric On Demand, another custom fabric printer, who carries fleece, to see how they do. They responded right away, but so far they have taken longer to send a sample. We’ll see how it looks. I hope I can find something that works for me.

Update: Both Fabric on Demand and Spoonflower have fleece now, and the black comes out nicely on both. I coated my eyeballs with some Liquitex Fabric Medium to make sure the edges didn’t fray when I cut them out.

Posted on November 26, 2015December 30, 2020 by Elizabeth Ruffing

Batik slugs, fleece slugs, and one running slug

I had a request recently for another batik Hug Me Slug. A customer adopted three of them, three years ago, for his three nephews. Since then, he has gained a forth nephew, who keeps trying to steal “Sluggy” from his brother, who loves him too much to share. So, we needed another slug to come to the rescue.

I made a test slug first, the one above, who is over in our shop at the moment, although someone just wrote to say he’d make a perfect birthday present for his daughter. I wanted to make sure I had the same pattern, since I have adjusted my patterns since then.

I sent him some photos of batiks to choose from and then made the one above, with a pretty apple green fleece heart. He is on his way, and I hope he restores peace on earth.

I also posted the fleece Hug Me Slugs I had ready, in all different colors, orange, yellow, purple, watermelon, red,

and in all different sizes, 7, 8, 9, and 12 inches tall.

I had another special request for a Hug Me Slug with a headband. A man wanted him for his girlfriend, who was organizing a marathon. He had to be an athletic slug. I wasn’t sure how that would work, since slugs don’t have foreheads. I managed to attach it over his eyes. He called him a “little runner slug” and I added that to the hang tag.

I am plugging away in Slug Land. Oliver Bunny loves to come running in when my workroom door is open. He sits in the hallway like a couch potato, but once the door is open, he is in there, well, quick as a bunny. I caught him on video, getting excited about running inside, dashing in and out.

There is a small bowl of pebbles, meant for potted plants, under my work table, that he enjoys playing with. But then, he enjoys playing with whatever he can get into in there. I have to watch him.

The menagerie have been keeping me busy. These are members of my kitty fan club, below, who, when they are free, wait for me on the borderline between our house and theirs. Sometimes they get impatient and come over.

Santana has been being so good about going to the back step and sitting there, when I ask him to, which I do, when the cats come closer. He has had too many squabbles and injuries. Last weekend, I thought we were doing great. The cats all came over, while I was walking Jude, and everyone seemed to be getting along. Trouble and Santana even went exploring together in the back yard. No problems. I was happy and thought they were finally making friends.

The kitty crowd even watched me set up our laser Christmas light, which must have been even more exciting for cats than a laser pointer. They were sitting in the driveway, staring up at the tree I had “decorated”, admiring it.

Then, the next morning, I heard cat noises. I jumped out of bed, ran out in my pajamas, and Trouble and Santana were in the driveway. Santana was badly hurt, three deep, cringeworthy punctures under the base of his tail (I will spare you the photo I took to get a better look). Ouch ouch ouch. I felt terrible. I found fur next to the back step, where I taught him to go when the cats came over. That made me extra sad, since he must have been trying to be good. Trouble had a little blood on his leg, but he appeared to be okay. I checked him over as best I could and didn’t see anything. He may have been coming to look in the back door, or maybe he thought it was fun to sneak up on Santana, who didn’t think it was fun, again. I don’t know.

Santana was bleeding a lot, and seemed to be in a bit shock. I called his mom and we flushed out the wounds. He went to the vet for a Convenia antibiotic shot. He was shaken for the first day, and tired, but the next day he was in a good mood. He is doing well now, and has even come up with a new game to play with me. He hides between the railing and the bushes by the back step, and waits for me. He jumps out when I come up the steps, and meows, like he is saying, “Surprise!” I wonder if he learned that from Trouble, who likes to sneak up and jump. They seem to do okay during the times I am around, but when I am not, in the early morning before I get up, and in the evening when I am inside and busy, are when the problems happen.

The cats are closed up for now, and no one seems to be home next door. Santana is probably happy about that too. I hope a cat sitter is coming this time. I haven’t seen one, but I can leave some food if I have to. I kind of feel like I am taking care of animals in every direction sometimes. I start when I get up and I am still doing it until late at night, while trying to fit work and errands in between. I did get another tree planted though. Go me.

I will post about my Spoonflower fabric samples in a separate post, since this one has already grown so long.

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone!

Posted on November 3, 2015December 30, 2020 by Elizabeth Ruffing

My Halloween cat pumpkin and Spoonflower eyeball experiment

Boo! I don’t think I had carved a pumpkin for Halloween since high school, maybe college. Santana’s mom gave me one, and the day before Halloween, I decided to give it a go.

I sketched a quick template on paper, folded it in half, and cut it out, so I could trace the lines onto the pumpkin with a pencil. Then I used whatever I could find to carve it, a steak knife, an X-Acto knife, and a little stabby knife of undetermined categorization.

First, I “drew” the lines with the X-Acto knife. Then I chipped the surface away where I wanted yellow, with the X-Acto knife. Then I used the steak knife and the stabby knife to cut all the way through where I wanted the holes. I cut the top and scooped out the inside when I was done cutting. I made a bit of a mess, but filled in the lines and pupils with some acrylic craft paint.

I set an emergency candle in a cat food can, first dripping a little wax into the can to get the candle to stand up. Santana kept the cat pumpkin, which was made in his honor, company while we had trick-or-treaters.

We had the best Halloween in years here, only about fifteen kids, which is more than usual, but they had great costumes. One family came with the mom and baby as astronauts, and the dad as the universe. He was all in black, with white lights across himself, so as he held the baby, the baby appeared to be floating through the sky.

One adorably baby lion tried to crawl up the steps. I met him halfway with the bowl of candy.

My favorite was a little superhero, maybe three years old. He had seen the Corgis at the previous stop, and wanted to know if we had any animals he could see. I told him I had a bunny rabbit. He looked incredulous, and said in a surprisingly low, gruff voice, “I wanna see the bunny rabbit.” I showed him Oliver, through the safety of the door, and they were both very curious about each other. The superhero made all kinds of grimaces. I’m not sure he believed Oliver was real, until Oliver reached out his head for a better look. That got a hilarious grimace and a big bizarre pirate laugh. I was still laughing the next day.

I took apart all those pajamas I got on clearance, and fleece throws this week. They are now pre-washed and folded, waiting for me with about a gazillion other lengths of fleece. I was going to try creating a design and ordering some Spoonflower fabric for toys, but thought, since I have so much fleece, I would try having them print eyeballs instead. I made up a repeat pattern in Photoshop Elements, and uploaded it to their site. It was straightforward, once I got the dpi of my image to 150 at the size I wanted.

I got my fat quarter in the mail this morning, printed on their Minky fabric. It looks pretty good. There is a small amount of stretching of my circles, near the edge. I don’t know if the black is as black as I might like, but the dye seems to have saturated the surface pretty well. That was my biggest concern, that white would show through the black. I am pre-washing the fat quarter right now, putting it through my usual steps. I will see how it comes out, once sewn on some slugs.

I think the printed eyeballs may be more consistent in shape and pupil placement than the ones I make by sewing the black onto the white. I don’t want them to lose their charm, but they will probably continue to be wonky enough for my satisfaction. 🙂 I may need to interface the backs so they don’t wiggle too much as I sew them on by hand.

This is the current group of Hug Me Slugs I am working on. Thank you all for continuing to leave me such nice reviews. Aside from helping me out, those cheer me up. Getting appreciation back is great and helps me keep going, making things. It can be hard, working in a bubble of sorts, from home, so those mean a lot to me. I have been feeling better than I have in a while. Got to go get back to my sewing!

Posted on October 26, 2015December 30, 2020 by Elizabeth Ruffing

800 toy shop sales, and learning to share

These 12 and 7 inch Hug Me Slug plush toys are in our shop right now. They are burgundy, purple, lavender, red, fuchsia, and mauve fleece.

I made my 800th toy shop sale this month. I want to reach my 1000th. I have those 200 toys in progress!

My 798th sale was to a little girl from the United Kingdom. Her dad had given her a Hug Me Slug. She took her slug to school for show and tell, and told the kids she came all the way from the United States. She saved up her own money to adopt a second Hug Me Slug. That is a great compliment.

I found some novelty print fleece pajamas on clearance and grabbed them to take apart to make toys. That seems a little wrong, but I liked the unusual, flamboyant designs and colors. I found throws in orchid fleece, which I have been looking for for years, and in cornflower blue, another unusual color.

I ordered a color map printed on Minky fabric from Spoonflower. They make custom-printed fabrics and I wanted to see if the Minky fabric would work for my toys. It is super soft and nice, but the colors don’t saturate the fabric all the way though. So, a little white shows at the base when stretched. I don’t know how that will look on seams or on my stuffed animals yet, since that may part the pile and show the white. I will check it out. There is enough white around the one-yard section, on which the color map is printed, for me to use to see how much the fabric stretches, but I will need to print another color sample to get a better idea of how much white shows at the base when it is stuffed, since I don’t want to cut up the color map. I’ve seen examples online, but I want to see it in person. It is a bit of an expensive experiment, but they don’t sell seconds for experimentation, unfortunately.

At the end of the day, I have some TV time with Oliver and Henrietta. After months of lying on my chest, staring into my eyes, Oliver is getting more independent. He wants to be petted on the bed now,

and the first thing he wants to do lately is jump into Henrietta’s carefully curated assortment of cat toys. He pushes them all around. Henrietta has collected this particular group of favorites, and generally does not let anyone play with them.

I tried giving Oliver one of them, separately, and Henrietta left her nest of toys to go sit on the one I gave him. He took the opportunity to run back to the others. They are both stubborn.

She decided to try sitting on Oliver, and then sitting next to Oliver. At first, he ran at her, and now they have agreed to share.

Josephine came along to investigate and neither was willing to do any additional sharing.

The bigger toys, the Pillow Pets, make excellent bunny “bumpers” around the edge of the bed, to keep Oliver from hopping off the edge when I get sleepy. Oliver likes to groom the yellow bunny’s ears for him.

Meanwhile, Jojo has decided she likes Oliver’s bunny bin. She spent a whole day in there, taking a nap. I think she wants to be a bunny for Halloween.

Oliver fits more comfortably inside to nap than Jojo.

He didn’t care too much that she wanted to visit. He spent the same afternoon in the hallway instead.

Trouble, next door, decided he likes pets. He is worried about the camera here.

He rolls over, he likes pets so much. He comes looking for me at least twice a day when he is loose. He and Santana, another neighbor kitty who hangs out here, were doing okay for a while, even sitting in view of each other, as I went back and forth petting each of them.

Then they had a few weeks of fighting. Both are the kind of kitties who don’t let things go. Some negative experience must have set them off. I am using some positive reinforcement. I have been keeping an eye on them while they are out, congratulating each one for being good and staying apart. It seems to be working pretty well. I have been luring Trouble into the woods, away from Santana, for pets, and calling Santana over to our deck or porch. They seem to be calming down again. Knock on wood.

Santana loves to be told he is a good boy. Praising the good behavior has worked best so far, at helping them get along. We’ve been through this before with Santana and another kitty who liked to visit. Santana gets angry and holds a grudge if he hears the word “no” or is scolded. He doesn’t forget it easily. I am careful to avoid that. Treats and catnip toys have worked wonders at keeping the peace before. I saw Trouble and Santana sitting near each other when I looked out this morning, with no to-do, but I lured them apart anyway. I hope that means we are making progress.