I'm back ... with a new quilling tool!

After a week-long absence from the 'blogosphere', I'm back ... and eager to start quilling once again!

I've just returned from a wonderful break in a tiny fishing village called Port Isaac in the English county of Cornwall - an area which I always find full of inspiration. Here's the very first view we had of the village as we drove down a narrow farm track. You can imagine how excited I felt to be on holiday once again, especially when the sea was absolutely sparkling in such glorious spring sunshine! During our week away we visited some wonderful beaches, harbours and gardens, giving me plenty of new photographic inspiration for my quilled cards - and I hope to be posting lots of new designs here on Quilliance in the weeks ahead.

We arrived home yesterday and I've had to spend time catching up on jobs around the house, so there's been no time to quill just yet. But I wanted to show you a brilliant new tool which I found in a craft shop during my time in Cornwall, and I can't wait to start using it.

It's actually a 'felting needle tool' - but I'm going to use it for my quilling. Regular followers of Quilliance will know that I'm not a fan of slotted quilling tools - I really dislike the 'kink' that such tools produce in the centres of the coils. Lately I've been using the shaft of a very fine needle tool to wind my coils, trying not to roll them too tight so that I can slide them off over the unwanted slotted section at the end of the tool. But what I really wanted was a needle tool without a slot - and here it is! Look closely, and you'll see that the shaft of needle divides into three sections - thick, medium and very fine - so you can actually choose the part to wind around depending on how big you want the central hole in your coil to be. Brilliant!

Now, because this is a felting tool, there are some tiny barbs on the narrow tip of the needle which are designed to push fibres through to the back of the fabric when creating felt. I don't see this as a problem, however, as I'm sure I'll be able to smooth the barbs off using a diamond file, and they really are very tiny indeed. Anyway, next week I'm going to start quilling with this new tool - and of course I'll let you know how I get on!