Back Into Blogging With A New Craft Addiction: Quilling

Now that I have some unlimited time on my hands, I'm excited to get back into sharing some of my creations. Not that I had stopped making things but the past couple of years have been hit or miss on consistency and time to post regularly. I'm excited to share a new love I've discovered, thanks to one of my oldest and best friends: Quilling. Really "Modern Quilling". Last year for my birthday, she surprised me with a book and box of supplies and I sat down last week to play with them. 

Quilling is thought to go back to the 15th century and started by English, French, and Italian nun and monks. Traditionally, quilling, similar to embroidery, recreated images of nature etc. Modern quilling still does that but can also be more fluid and abstract. This appealed to me. As is my nature, I looked at the basic process and then just kind of went where I went with it. 

I had several embroidery hoops in my stash so they came to mind when I wanted to start my first project (shown above).  Stayed w/ my often used colors of black, grey, and white. 

Supplies: 

• Embroidery Hoop
• Lightweight Chipboard
• Quilling Tool ( available at craft stores or online)
• Tweezers
• Glue. I just used Elmers but PVA glue is recommended.  I had this package of precision tip glue pens in my stash which worked great! 
• Quilling strips

I traced the shape of the embroidery hoop onto the chipboard, cut out, and glued together w/ hot glue. As that set, I made a bunch of shapes. Pinterest and You Tube have great tutorials to show the basics!

I made a collection of loose coils, tight coils, teardrops and the "eye" shaped ones as shown ( loose round coils w/ each end pinched). Once I thought I had enough to fill in my hoop, I started gluing them down to the chipboard base. 

Since I'm an intuitive crafter, I just started filling in space w/ the black, then moved to the gray and the white ( really cream). Where there were big, obvious spaces, I just rolled some tight but smaller coils and filled in. 

I had so much fun with it , I decided to play with some other color combinations. For the next one, I chose browns and purples. 

I found it was helpful to have something damp to store my glue tip in to help keep it clog free as I was working and also to clean off my fingertips which get sticky as you seal the ends of your shapes. I put a couple pieces of paper towel in a small jar and wet them and they actually stay wet for a few days. I didn't close the jar because I didn't want mold to have a chance and you can just re-dampen if it dries out. 

I repeated the same process with the embroidery hoop and a piece of cardstock, then made my shapes and glued down, again in no specific pattern, just as I went along. 

Once again I filled in some spaces w/ tighter coils but the intent wasn't to fill in completely which is why I went w/ a coordinating piece of cardstock as the base. 

For the first two, I used 6 inch hoops. I was having so much fun I wanted to do another one and play w/ some other colors and only had 8 inch hoops so went w/ that and trust me, that little increase in size makes a difference in the number of coils you need! Not a bad thing mind you. It goes pretty fast once you get the hang of using the quilling tool. Law & Order SVU marathons or music make the time fly by! 

I am hooked! I cannot wait to play some more. I want to do monograms, and cards and, and, and ...

Fiber Art: Double Hoop Wall Hanging w/ Circular Weaving

I had so much fun with my last project / first Embroidery Hoop Fiber project that I couldn't wait to do another one. Michaels helped me out by having some yarn on clearance. Since I already had the hoops and other yarn on hand, I spent $6 for some quirky chunky yarn that will make a few projects and happened to match a painting I'd done for our bedroom. 

Supplies

• Embroidery Hoops 2 Sizes
• Yarn
• Glue Gun

Part of this project involved Circular Weaving, something I stumbled upon after looking around Pinterest after my last project. Oh boy...gonna be addicting! Here's the video I used to learn how to "warp the hoop" (ooh don't I sound fan-cy?)

Once that was done, I threaded the yarn over and under the sections of the "warped hoop" until I felt like changing yarns. I made sure to always end on the reverse side, tied on a new color, resumed. 

I went all the way to the end but you don't have to. 

For the bigger hoop, I tied the yarn as shown and then glued the smaller hoop inside the bigger hoop and tied a couple of strands on the smaller hoop's hardware. I had a rolled felt rose leftover from the other piece so I plopped it on top. 

Sun glare washed out the painting. 

May just go start another one...

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Easy Boho Embroidery Hoop Wall Hanging

I've seen these in a few boutiques and thought (like all Makers do) "I can make that". So I did! For some of us old enough to remember fiber and macrame from the 70's, everything old is new again right? 

Supplies: 

• Embroidery Hoop , your choice of size. They're inexpensive so buy a few !
• Yarn of choice. I went with a funky textured grey and cream
• Felt 
• Glue gun and glue

I bought the chunky gray and cream at JoAnn's and had the other yarns in my stash. I thought I might use all of them but ended up just using the grey and cream. I wasn't going for measured perfection so I roughly measured 3 strands of yarn for each "knot" , folded in half, and then pulled through the loop to attach to the embroidery hoop. I did 9 "knots" each of the cream and grey and made them a little shorter working from the center out. 

I had some coordinating felt in my stash so made some rolled roses and then cut some leaves freehand using pinking shears. Attached to the embroidery hoop w/ hot glue. Easy peasy!

Et, voila!

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Easy Paper Hoop Project : Halloween Edition

I was meeting a couple of girlfriends for Brunch and I always like to bring a little girlfriend gift. I whipped these up quickly because my week hadn't gone as planned and I didn't even take a pic of the "final final" so not even sure I should post but...

I was inspired by this Christmas idea from The How To Home: 

and have these planned for Christmas. But I thought "hey, I could do something easy peasy for Halloween" to take my friends. 

Supplies: 

• 3" Wood Embroidery Hoops 
• Paper of choice
• Vinyl decal ( I cut mine using my Silhouette but you could use pre-made or use stickers or diecuts!)
• Embellishments 

This was a great way to use some papers from prior Halloween cards. I chose two sheets , traced the outer hoop, and cut out the circles. 

Glue to the back of your hoop using hot glue.  I chose a Halloween themed image from the Silhouette Library and added each of their initials in the center. 

Applied the vinyl to the center of the hoops and voila! 

I finished these ( bad blogger...forgot to take a picture!!) with a black organza ribbon bow at the top and tied a Halloween themed enamel charm with black and white baker's twine. And me, being me, added a few clear sparkly rhinestones o the broom and monogram. Super easy. Super fast. And I think super cute!!