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!

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!