A quilled flower to complement lazy summer days

We're having glorious weather here in the UK at the moment - in fact, it feels more like high summer than Easter time! This has prompted me to look back at some of the photographs I took in various gardens last summer - and my latest card carries a background image that I've transformed using the 'Charcoal' sketch filter in Photoshop to set the scene for a colourful quilled flower.

I formed the large teardrop shapes for the petals from rings which were created by winding quilling strips around a 1cm dowel. I quite like this 'open' style of quilling for a change, as it gives you so much scope for putting other shapes inside. Maybe I'll experiment a bit more with this technique now that the Easter holiday weekend is here.

Meanwhile, I had a successful trial run last night for the quilling demonstration that I have prepared for my women's group next month. The two friends who came as my 'practice audience' were fascinated by their introduction to quilling and seem very keen to try some more. I had provided slotted tools for them to try making coils with, but in the end they both preferred winding strips around a simple cocktail stick which surprised me - but it just goes to show that you can't make assumptions about people's preferences. Anyway, it was a fun evening and definitely time well spent. Now I'm looking forward to my 'public debut' in three weeks' time.

And finally ... I had a successful time at the market this morning, where I sold two pairs of earrings and several cards. I bought a new card display rack earlier in the week, which came out for the first time today, and I'm really pleased with it. Each shelf is slightly angled so that the cards don't tip forward as people look through them. The rack is lightweight, too, and easy to put together. In case anyone is interested, there's a link to the supplier here. Sharp-eyed followers will recognise many of these card designs (below) which I've posted on Quilliance at one time or another.  I hope you all have a wonderful weekend ...