Monday 16 May 2011

Pattern for quilled water lily flower

Several people have asked me to post the pattern for the water lily flower that I made last week. So here it is. Writing this has made me think hard about the best way to present pattern instructions, and I'd really appreciate your comments about the format I have used, to see whether it can be improved.

Here goes:






You will need:
1 x 14.5 cm yellow strip
1 x 14.5cm orange strip (crimped)
1 x 5cm length of fringed yellow paper
13 x 29cm deep pink strips
13 x 14.5cm light pink strips
Cork board and four pins to make huskings

I used Paplin's 3mm wide strips, which are 58cm in length. For convenience, a quarter of one of these strips measures 14.5cm, and a half measures 29cm, so it is easy to divide them up quickly into quarters and halves to make this flower. I also used some ready-fringed paper which is about 1.5cm wide, but you could easily cut your own.

Method:
To make the centre of the flower, glue the yellow and crimped orange strip together at one end. Roll up the joined strips from the glued end with the orange in the centre. Release the finished coil very slightly so that the orange strip and its crimping are clearly visible; trim and glue the ends so that you have a coil approximately 1cm in diameter. Wind the fringed yellow paper around your coil, gluing at each end to secure it in position. Do not fan the fringing out yet.

To make the first petal, set up a vertical row of pins on your cork board spaced as follows: pin 2 should be 2.7cm above pin 1; pin 3 should be 1cm above pin 2; pin 4 should be 1.5cm above pin 3. Take a deep pink strip, put some glue on the very end and fold it over to create a tiny loop about 1 - 2 mm in length. Pin 1 should pass through this loop. Wind the strip around pin 2 and back to pin 1, gluing at that point, using the standard method for creating wheatear huskings. Wind again around pin 3, and glue again behind pin 1. Wind again around pin 4 and back to pin 1 again. Trim the strip at this point and glue the end down behind pin 1. Remove the pins and gently lift your husking from the board when the glue is dry.

Roll a light pink strip into a closed loose coil, glue down the end and pinch the coil into an 'eye' shape. Put a dab of glue on one point of the eye, and position it inside your deep pink husking so that the glue is at the base (pin 1) end.

Now you have one petal for the lily flower. Make a further twelve petals in the same way, and glue them around the flower centre, with a dab of glue on the base of each petal and also on the sides for extra support. When the flower is assembled, you can fan out the fringed section.

Handy tip: when making huskings, try using straight needles instead of round-headed pins. Because of their streamlined shape, there is no need to remove the needles from the board each time, as the husking can easily be lifted off with the needles still in position, ready for you to make your next petal.

So ... how did I do?

4 comments:

  1. Thanks for the instruction, you explained it well, your good at it!!!!
    Paula

    ReplyDelete
  2. You did great. I'm bookmarking this so I can try it when I have some time. Thanks for the directions.

    ReplyDelete
  3. You did a very good job. Very pretty flower.
    Teddie

    ReplyDelete
  4. I'm so glad to read that my instructions make sense! Thanks.

    ReplyDelete

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