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!

Well, my first self portrait is finished for a challenge in The Thread Society Yahoo group. It began as a photograph and I removed all the background in Photoshop, put the eyes on top of the hands (from a second photo), and then printed it on fabric.

All the paint on this is Earth Safe Finishes Shimmering Gels (some opaque and some translucent). They handled very well on fabric and didn't change the hand of the fabric very much, considering the coverage.

The final step was to drop the feed dogs on the sewing machine and use free-motion stitching in the hair, to outline the arms and hands.

I'd like to do this several more times to refine the technique, but this will have to do for now.

DH and I went on a photo safari Saturday. It was the first beautiful spring day we've had this year and the warm sunshine after weeks of cold rainy weather really made the flowers and trees pop open.




One of my favorite local photo spots is Foster Park, in southwest Fort Wayne. The golf course and gardens are very well tended and often have the first flowers blooming in spring.


This is tulip season, the jonquils and daffodils are almost past, but the tulips are at their peak.


These altered photos will be printed on fabric and stitched as door prizes at guild presentations and workshops.


I'm not sure which I enjoy more, taking the photos or altering, printing, and stitching them!

Finally, we have some spring-like weather! After what seems like months of cold, dreary, rainy weather we have a day in the 70s—and wow, did that sunshine bring out the flowers. DH and I went to the park this afternoon and took scads of photos.

I'm working on a self portrait for a challenge among members of The Thread Society Yahoo group. This is the original photo. A little creepy, isn't it? Hopefully, once it's printed on fabric, painted, and embellished with threads and fibers it will be more whimsical than creepy!

Have you heard of Earth Safe Finishes yet? It is a woman-owned (USA) company that manufactures and sells paint, colorants, and media with no or low VOC (volatile organic compounds) content. The purse above was made from a piece of rust-dyed fabric over-dyed with the dye recipe and surface design added with opaque shimmer gels.

I really love the colorants, fabric medium, and shimmer gels on fabric! They are environmentally friendly-and space friendly. The colorants mixed with various media will produce dye, ink, or paint in any color you want. That means less space occupied by multiple colors of dye, multiple colors of ink, and multiple colors of paint!

The monthly newsletter is packed with ideas, tips, how-to projects, and useful environmental information. The link to the newsletter page is
http://www.earthsafefinishes.com/Newsletter.html Check it out! With the focus on environmentally ("green") responsible products and reducing one's carbon imprint, this is especially timely.

This is a little quiltie (8" x 10") going to a fundraising silent auction for my godson Tyler's Future Farmers Of America in Iowa. He loves horses, so I hope he likes this.

It started as a photograph my studio associate Lori took during a snowfall last winter (the one that's still lingering here in northern Indiana). She altered it on the computer and printed it on fabric. I then dropped the feed dogs on the sewing machine to outline and add detail with free-motion stitching.