I ordered flowers for the casket spray yesterday: dark pink roses, light pink Gerbera daisies, and lots of baby's breath. It should be beautiful.

The weather forecast for Friday has no mention of rain, thank goodness. Thank you to those who shared the balloon release idea for the grave site. They will be pink and white, of course! I'm hoping to get a photo of the balloons to share on the blog.

Several online friends have mentioned how difficult it is to hear the words in the Charlotte Church piece. So, here they are:

From my first moment you gave me wings
Let me fly and believed in my dreams
From that first moment you cherished me so
The journey through life would be hard with out you
You gave me all I have and all I know

From my first moment you would be there
In your arms lay the strength I now bear
From that first moment each day I have you
As seasons they change but your heart stays the same
You gave me all I have and all I know


From my first moment as time goes by
We drift endlessly through open skies
The journey though life would be hard with out you
You gave me all I have and all I know

My mom passed away Saturday afternoon. She was ready to go and weary from struggling to breathe. Family and friends visited her throughout the day and she was able to speak to them until shortly before she expired.

Ellie was surrounded by family and friends. Even the nurses gathered to sing hymns and lift her into the arms of the angels.

She will be missed by many from her years of service in her church and community.

The YouTube video above is Charlotte Church (my favorite female vocalist) singing beautiful words of tribute to a song by Eric Satie (this song has been special to me since high school). The words will be printed in the funeral bulletin and I wanted to share this beautiful piece with you!

My mom went back to the hospital this afternoon. It's 11:00 and I'm just home again. She is resting comfortably and we are grateful the frightening shortness of breath is being addressed.

They took a chest x-ray and did a CT scan of the lungs. We should know more tomorrow, but it doesn't look like a pulmonary embolism or congestive heart failure.

Image Transfer Tutorial

Original tulip photo.

Original photo transferred onto Tyvek with Earth Safe Finishes Hand and Brush Cleaner.

Finally had a minute to upload the tutorial on transferring images onto fabric, Tyvek, and Lutradur using Earth Safe Finishes Hand and Brush Cleaner. Look for it in the bar on the left of this page.

There are separate directions for dye-base and pigment-base inks and a third one for toner-base photocopies.

How to tell if your printer uses dye-base or pigment-base inks? Make a color print of something, using all four, six, or eight inks (depending on your printer) on plain paper and let it dry completely. Then, drip water on the print. If it just gets wet, it's probably pigment-base ink. If it get wet and runs or wicks, it's most-probably dye-base ink.

As an interesting note, there was a little Hand a Brush Cleaner left on a plastic plate when I was running these tests. The next morning, the cleaner was still in the plate. It had not evaporated. Interesting! Wonder if that is an indication of the no-VOC content?

Sorry for the delay in posting the tutorial on image transfers. My mom has suffered a (hopefully temporary) setback in rehab and I need to be at her side. Hopefully, she'll be back on top of it in a day or so and I can focus on the tutorial again.

In the meantime, thank you all for your thoughts, prayers, and well wishes! They have been amazing!

Greetings for Clotilde

I think this is going to be my (oversize) greeting for Clotilde. The deadline has been extended to the end of May. So, if you'd like to send a "congratulations on your retirement" greeting to her. Let me know and I'll send you my snail-mail address.

Many wonderful greetings have come in from colleagues and fans. I'm really excited about presenting her with an album of e-mail greetings and a box of cards and letters.

Also, I'll be posting another tutorial tomorrow on transferring inkjet images onto fabric, Tyvek, and Lutradur using Brush and Hand Cleaner from Earth Safe Finishes. It is way cool! Lyric Kinard started me down this path a couple days ago with her photocopy transfer technique, but my local copy shops don't use toner copiers anymore; they are all laser jet. So, Barbara Matthiessen and I have spent every spare minute the last few days working with inkjet prints from dye-base and pigment-base printers and the Brush and Hand Cleaner. I think we've got the winning combination, but it's different for the type of printer.

More tomorrow!

While I'm working out the details on the Fabric Magic test, you might like to see one of the first things I did with Fabric Magic and Colorant. This is a really cool texture effect that later I found Barbara Matthiessen had already developed independently!

Barbara uses ugly duckling prints and overdyes them with 1 drop of Fabric Magic, 1 drop of Colorant, mixed with 1/4 to 1/2 cup of water.

I wrote a tutorial and share it here with her permission. My version begins with rust-dyed fabric that needed a little something more. Click the link in the column on the left for a download-able pdf file with photos, step-by-step instructions, and a link to Earth Safe Finishes for lots more information and a chart of all 22 Colorant colors.

Using the right colors, you could create beautiful faux marble, granite, malachite, and scads more! I just love the texture and want to print a texture or background photo on top, once we've established the proper parameters of pre-treating fabric with the Fabric Magic mix!

Happy Mother's Day! Aren't these beautiful? DS Jake gave me two dozen roses in glorious mixed color for my birthday (May 7th) and Mother's Day.

The sun is shining here in Northern Indiana and the blustery wind has died down. It's only 50 degrees this morning, but at least it LOOKS like spring. LOL!

Today we'll go to see my mother in the rehab center. She was so tired yesterday from physical and occupational therapy, she didn't even want lunch. Fortunately, she was convinced to eat to help her regain strength, but pooped out less than halfway through afternoon Bingo. When I left, she was in bed and dozing off. She'll be glad to see Jake!

If you signed up to be part of the Fabric Magic test team, be sure to send me your e-mail address. It looks like the package will include a bottle of Fabric Magic, two bottles of Colorant, a project sheet, and test instructions. Shipping should be about $5 within the US.

More info later!

Please continue to post your interest in the test team!

Nancy at Earth Safe Finishes has offered to include samples of the Colorant so you can try those too. So, we'll include a project sheet for that.

Monday I'll look into the most economical way to box this all up and ship it. So hang on, it's going to be an adventure!

Make your own inkjet coating for fabric!

Make your own inkjet coating for fabric!

Longtime art buddy Barbara Matthiessen and I are really excited to share a recent discovery. This will be especially interesting to those who print on specialty fabrics and have had trouble finding Bubble Jet Set 2000.

Barbara and I have been working with Earth Safe Finishes products recently, a line of environmentally safe colorants (like an ink or dye), paints, and media. One of the products is a no-VOC (volatile organic compound) fabric medium called Fabric Magic, which can be mixed with the colorants and water, aloe gel, or shaving cream to create fabric inks, dyes, or paints.

Long story short(er): A few drops of Fabric Magic mixed with water, can also be used as an inkjet fixative on fabric!

Barbara has conducted the initial tests on this, since I've been with my mom in the hospital and rehab center, but we'd like to include YOU in a test team, if you're interested.

The first 25 people who respond to this will receive a bottle of Fabric Magic (for the price of shipping) and instructions, so the methodology will be the same throughout the team. When your tests are completed and results are returned, I'll send you a signed mini Threadography as a "thank you." Results will be posted here on my blog.

The goal is to test the Fabric Magic recipe with as many different printers and printer inks as possible to establish the versatility of this technique.

No, neither of us are employees of Earth Safe Finishes. We are just product development specialists in the quilting and craft industries, as well as artists who love to print on fabrics not available commercially coated.

If you're interested, please leave a comment on today's blog entry and we'll get details to you. We are really excited and hope you will be, too!

My mom is much better, thank goodness! Surgery went well and we thought we was stable, until she had a reaction to the pain medication/anesthesia combination. She was on planet Ellie for about three days, hallucinating and unable to sleep. Someone had to be with her around the clock to make sure she was safe. Fortunately, the brain fog lifted yesterday morning and she's back to being her usual self.

Thank you to everyone who said prayers and sent kind messages. She is on the road to recovery. It will be at least six weeks until she is strong enough to go back home. Therapy will be strenuous and uncomfortable, but she is one determined lady!


These are photos of some small pieces made from photos posted on the blog a week or so ago (I've lost track of time, so it may be longer than that.) The altered photos were posted and these are the pieces printed on fabric and stitched.



Did you participate in Virginia Spiegel's Collage Mania? All eight of my pieces were acquired! I'm thrilled—thrilled they sold and thrilled to be a part of this incredible experience. The fiber art world owes so much to Virginia and Karen Stiehl Osborn for making it possible for us all to help the American Cancer Society in this manner!

No photos today. I'm in a hospital lobby, waiting for my mother's surgeon to tell us she's out of surgery.

Ellie fell in her kitchen yesterday. The rubber sole of her shoe caught on the kitchen tile and pitched her forward into the sink. She bounced of the sink, hit her head on the oven door and landed on her hip and broke it (the hip).

Fortunately, the gentleman who works in her yard was nearby and had not started the mower or garden tiller and was able to hear her calling for help. At 86, even if she had been able to drag herself to the counter, there is no way she'd have been able to reach the phone. So, we are grateful help was immediately nearby.

The surgeon is installing two metal rods into the bone to hold the bone together while it heals. They tell us to expect recovery to take about 6 weeks. So, family and friends are rearranging their lives to make sure she has the support she needs.

Thank you for your prayers, good wishes, and positive energy. They make such a difference!