September 2013 – Ornamento

Ellen Marshall Explains It All For You

By: ornamento.blog September 26, 2013September 26, 2013

ArtArt, Community Art Groups, Ellen Marshall, Gwen Gibson, Polymer Clay3 Comments

By now I suppose everyone has heard the news that Gwen Gibson passed away on September 24, 2013. If you have any doubts about the influence Gwen had on her students, consider this: Ellen Marshall (below) brought Gwen to Philadelphia to teach her class on Inro vessels to the Philadelphia Area Polymer Clay Guild in the late 1990’s. That was my introduction to silk screening on polymer clay. I went on to write articles about the technique and I even got to demonstrate my version on HGTV. And Ellen went on to explore surface design in polymer clay and to write her book Polymer Clay Surface Design Recipes. Ellen mentioned Gwen’s work during her demo and one of the pieces she brought to show examples of surface techniques was an Inro vessel (picture below) she made in Gwen’s class years earlier. Gwen inspired her students and her students, will continue to inspire others. Her body is gone but her spirit is alive and well.

Cast thy bread upon the waters: for thou shalt find it after many days. Ecclesiastes 11

Class5

Philadelphia Area Polymer Clay Guild member Maisha Sullivan organized a multi-media Community Crafting Group and a couple of weeks ago, Ellen Marshall and I showed some basic polymer clay techniques to the group of enthusiastic newbie clayers. Ellen gave a great mini workshop she called “An Introduction to Color and Surface Design.” Ellen literally wrote the book on polymer clay surface design and we all had fun watching her design and create a pin and a pendant.

Here are some pictures from the her demonstration:

Surface Techniques

Applying paint

Cutting and and rearranging the clay. Ellen likes to work on a grid.

Making and attaching a polymer clay bail to a pendant

class6

I demonstrated Skinner blends and Mokume Gane. Maisha finished up with a quickie image transfer demo.

Here’s some more color samples and pieces from Ellen

Lessons Learned from Tiling a Backsplash

By: ornamento.blog September 19, 2013September 10, 2013

Art, Plumptoncreativity, DIY, home renovation, Tiling7 Comments

The tile comes in pizza boxes!

Preping the wall

Before any great endeavor, you must prepare the substrate.

before

Tiling a back splash is messy

in progress

A promising start is just a promising start and not a prediction of what will happen down the road

Popsicle sticks

You can always find a use for popsicle sticks

Tile cutter

Simple tools will do the job

Backsplash

Here are some “after” pictures

Tiles3

I am glad it’s done. I can see every mistake, but overall, it’s not bad

Tiles2

And I did it all by myself!

To much work makes you mean

Installing tile is hardwork and can make you mean

Plumpton

But Plumpton will always love me

My Sewing Machine Will Quilt Again!

By: ornamento.blog September 12, 2013April 29, 2015

Art, quilting, Sewing, Singer Slant-o-maticArt, humor writing, Quilting, repairman review, Sewing, sewing machine repair3 Comments

In my previous post, I told you how I murdered my sewing machine and how Jack De Sorte carried it and my other machine off into the night. Did I ever hear from him again?

I am happy to report that I did. As a matter of fact, he had the Slant-O-Matic back to me THE NEXT DAY!!!!! I was beside myself with joy and sewed like a mad woman all weekend. But what about the Kenmore? Well, that’s a little more complicated.

I got a call at work the next week. It was Jack.

“What did you do to that machine?!?!” he demanded.

“Did I do something wrong, ” I whispered meekly.

“Did you do something wrong? The gears were shot! I don’t know what you did to that machine but I had to call in favors and drive to shops in Jersey to get all the parts. What did you do to that machine?”

“I dunno,” I squeaked, “Could you fix it?”

“Could I fix it?-It’s like new,” he shot back me, ” and when I deliver it I’ll give you some instructions.”

Yikes. What was I in for?

He arrived at my house that might cradling the machine like a baby. He laid it on my dining room table and pulled a small bag out of his pocket. “Here are needles,” he told me, “and bobbins and a new zipper foot. I want you to use them.” He put the bag on the table.

“Do not use cheap needles!” he admonished me. If you hit something while you’re sewing, STOP AND STEP AWAY FROM THE MACHINE! Do not try to sew with a bent needle! Do not pull the thread! Do not sew with a dirty machine! Clean and oil it regularly! ”

“Yes Jack,” I whispered.

And now, I am afraid-I am afraid that if I screw up one more time, that Jack will find out, come to my house, take my machine and place it in a foster home.

I will be careful.

Seriously, if you live in the Philadelphia area and need sewing machine repair, call Jack. I cannot recommend him enough.

De Sorte’s Vacuum Cleaner Service

6153 Market St
Philadelphia, PA 19139
(215) 474-3045

Here are some pictures of what I sewed after Jack fixed my sewing machines

I Murdered My Sewing Machine!!

By: ornamento.blog September 5, 2013April 29, 2015

Art, Philadelphia, quilting, Sewing, Singer Slant-o-matic, South Philadelphia, South Philly, writingArt, creativity, humor writing, Quilting, repairman review, sewing machine repair5 Comments

I managed to murder a sewing machine. I was busy sewing wonky log cabin blocks on my late Mother-in-Law’s Kenmore when I heard, GADUMP! I stopped and saw I had a bent needle. I replaced it and stared to sew but the machine continued to clunk!clunk! clunk! And clunk! And basically not sew anything. I needed sewing machine triage.

: Chain Piecing on the Kenmore

There is no sewing repair place near my house and I don’t own a car. I was determined not to ask a friend to schlep me and my crippled machine to a repair place so I started to look for someone who would come to my house. I found a guy on Yelp who had one five star rating. That was his only rating. I called him.

“How old is your machine?” he asked

“I don’t want to buy a new one,” I retorted. (I am always suspicious.)

“I don’t want you to buy a new one,” he answered, “the new ones aren’t any good; but I need to know how old yours is before I know whether I can work on it.”

“Seventeen years old, ” I replied.

“I can fix that no problem.” He made arrangements to come to my house the next day.

My husband let him in and took his card, Jack DeSorte’s Vacuum Repair. Jack parked himself at my dining room table and inspected the machine. “I’ll have this fixed in about an hour, ” he announced.

My heart soared. For the next hour, Jack labored on the machine and treated my husband and me to the short version of his life story, his philosophy of sewing machines, sewing machine repair and sewing machine restoration. It dawned on me that I had a first class, genuine, A-Number One sewing machine nerd repairman seated in my dining room. Which is a good thing in case you were wondering.

After an hour, Jack rose from the table wiping his forehead and informed me that he would have to take the machine into his shop. “I don’t know what you did to this machine, ” he declared, ” but I’m gonna have to take the whole thing apart and it’s gonna be messy. I might need parts. I can’t fix it here.”

“Will you bring it back when it’s fixed?” I inquired.

“Of course,” he replied as if wondering why I had to ask about something so obvious.

“Wait a minute,” I called, running down the basement steps, “I have something else.” I returned with my Mother’s 1961 Singer Slant-O-Matic 500A. “This was my mother’s machine, “I told him, ” and I used to sew on it when I was a little girl. It works but it needs a tune up. She got that machine when Kennedy was president, ” I added. (This means that I felt comfortable enough with Jack to date myself. Which means something but I’m not sure what.)

: Slant-O-Matic

He was beaming. “Will you look at that, ” he exclaimed lifting up the lid that covers the double thread spindles. “It’s so clean! Normally when I see one if these it’s got all kinds of crap on it.”

“My Mother was so clean that once she broke our television to clean it, “I bragged. “My Father wouldn’t get it fixed, so we had to turn it on and off by using the plug. And my brother claimed that we were the only family he knew who had a brutal cycle on their washing machine.”Maybe you are starting to understand why I took to Jack like I did.

Jack wrote up the proper receipts and disappeared with my sewing machines into the night.

To be continued. . .