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!