I'll Fly Away

A few sore fingers later...I finished hand quilting my fairy wings. BTW, I put sports tape on my fingertips when I hand sew, sometimes two layers thick, usually on my index and ring fingers of both hands. Sometimes I just switch the tape from one finger to the other on my left hand, depending on which I am using and what is more comfortable.

I have three leather thimbles I use in addition to the tape, when I can, but I find my precision is always somewhat diminished by the use of thimbles. I removed the plastic protectors from my leather thimbles to keep the needle from slipping and sewed them a little tighter to fit my fingers better. I put them over my taped fingertips. The tape cuts down on the pricking and the thimbles relieve some of the pressure of the needle which causes soreness. I did these wings with just the tape, which was less clumsy, but a little more painful. I don't seem to take to using metal thimbles, however more of a charming they may be than sports tape.

Hieronymus Bosch

At first glance I thought this looked like a pile of intestines, or a sketch for an Hieronymus Bosch painting, or maybe even a scene from CSI, the fairy version. It's just a pile of doll parts, an exhausting pile of flower baby fairy bits and pieces. I always think it will be much easier to make the bodies up in groups, but that always leads to my thinking that I will never make one of these again! I still have six wings to hand quilt before I can even begin assembling them. I may go mad. I hope not, but I may.

In other news, I made a new banner for our eBay About Me page, and redesigned the page. I added new picture links to click on and some other content, like buyers' feedback. It's much brighter and more eye-catching now. Our eBay My World page now has a guestbook you can sign and a mini-blog that points to our Ruffing's blog.

I've been fiddling with our Ruffing's home page and our art doll gallery page as well. My goal is to get pictures of our available dolls up with links to their purchase information. I'm still in the process of editing Max Bailey's kitty cat art doll photos, and I'm adding them as I go to our ruffingsartdolls Flickr album. I love "Crabby Alice" so much I can't help hoping that she stays with us. The thought of her leaving makes me very sad.

Best if used before 1982

I woke up again not well, headache, stomachache, etc, and thought it might be nice to make peach muffins for breakfast. Without being truly awake, I just started to follow the Basic Buttermilk Muffin recipe in Deborah Madison's Vegetarian Cooking for Everyone, using the Fresh Fruit Muffin variation. I remembered making these before and they were quite good, only I didn't remember how long ago that was.

I scooped out some whole wheat flour (it was supposed to be whole wheat pastry flour...but that's what I had) from I don't know when. It smelled, um...a little dusty. I threw it out and found a "new" bag I must have gotten to replace the first one, but even that expired a year ago. Then there was the bag of peaches that I obviously hadn't checked on in a week. Out of three, I got almost enough fruit. I threw out two bags of shriveled frozen fruit, two jars of old baking powder, didn't even have enough vanilla, but I still went through with my plan to make muffins.

Well, I know they were good the last time I made them. Sorry to Deborah Madison...all the recipes I've tried from this book have been good. I just didn't do her proud this time around. That's all I'm going to say about that! :)

We did get some art doll photography time in yesterday and the day before. I've got to edit and upload Max Bailey's new kitty doll photos to Flickr and then we'll get them up over on the Ruffing's blog.

"Goodnight Irene", One-of-a-kind Original Art Doll

After much hand basting, machine appliquéing, stuffing, machine and hand sewing, "Goodnight Irene" is complete.

I made her pattern basing it on my much loved Miss Annabelle, a favorite doll from my childhood. She is a big doll, about 22 inches tall, and about 14 inches seated. I drew and painted her face, giving her very pretty green eyes.

Here she is seated with "Lovely Lucy". Both are available in my Etsy shop. More photos can be seen on Flickr.

I also spent some time today organizing our ruffingsartdolls Flickr photo album, adding sets off to the right to make finding dolls of special interest a little easier.

I've been updating our eBay store as well, adding information to our My World page. I hope to do a complete overhaul on our About Me page soon.

And, I've added a really cool Etsy widget to the home page of elizabethruffing.com I'm enjoying looking at all those thumbnails of my artwork grouped together on the page. So colorful.

I've somehow managed to work through the day in spite of being dizzy and still a bit unwell. I woke up at 4:30 this morning just reeling. I hope this will pass soon.

Slow Motion Quilting

I haven't been feeling well and missed my quilt class this past weekend. I rallied and got my homework together in time for the midweek class instead. I was going to just pay the five dollar penalty for not doing my homework, but I wanted to get back to my normal routine as much as I could.

I sewed this block all by hand, using templates I made from poster board and plastic template sheets. The finished block size is 12 inches square, and 12 1/2 inches square including the seam allowances.

The yellow and white portions of the block are based on a 3 by 4 1/2 inch rectangle. The yellow triangle is formed by drawing a line to the center point of the opposite short side of the rectangle.

The blue and white portions of the block are based on a 4 1/2 by 4 1/2 inch square. Trace one out on plastic, draw two lines dividing the square into quarters, which divides the square into four smaller squares. Drawing a line from corner to corner of the smaller squares forms the triangle, and the trapezoid.

Once you cut all the template pieces out as I have above, flip them over right side down on the wrong side of your fabric and trace around them with a pencil. A mechanical pencil works best. It also helps to lay your fabric over a piece of sandpaper to stabilize it.

Once all the shapes are traced, cut them out leaving a 1/4 inch seam allowance around each one. (The block's center white square is 3 inches by 3 inches without seam allowances, and 3 1/2 by 3 1/2 with seam allowances.) I then piece them together by hand using a standard running stitch. It takes longer, but I find it is much more accurate and less frustrating than joining small pieces by machine. It is also calming and, I think, fun to do since you can do it anywhere, even while in bed watching TV.