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 ...
