Here, for your viewing pleasure, is a work in progress of mine. This is Twitchy.

Twitchy is a doll that I have been working on on and off for the past two years.

She was named after my muse. My muse is a fickle wench, and she drags me hither and yon. I rarely can stay focused on one project (be it quilting, writing, photography, genealogy, gardening, housework…you get the idea, right??) long enough to complete it.

In the summer of 2007, I was deeply in the middle of writing a fan fiction story, when this line of prose came from my characters mouth. “Why so twitchy, Babe?”

It didn’t suit the character in that particular environment; it wasn’t working in the greater scheme of things, so I abandoned it.

The sentence continued to haunt me for a week, so I wrote a little one shot, using the same characters but a different reality. Then that took on a life of its own, and that became a 15,000 word piece!

The story, Why So Twitchy Babe, is finished. As is the story that started it, Big Chill, after a long hiatus caused by Twitchy herself.

Twitchy, however, is still unfinished. She is only the second fabric doll I have ever made (the first being Eli, about 28 years ago, for my babiest brother)

I have made a lot of mistakes with her, (her head is on crooked, and she has the hands of a half-back for example) but I have been enjoying myself!

Twitchy believes that she should be somewhere on a sandy beach (cabana boys bringing her mojitos) looking for inspiration, not stuck sitting on a shelf in my studio…