Quilling on through thick and thin!

Lauren over at the Creative Quilling Forum kindly sent me a multi-coloured pack of 1.5mm quilling strips as part of my prize for winning the Forum's recent quilled jewellery challenge. I was really looking forward to receiving this, as I normally always use 3mm strips, and I was keen to try using narrower ones for a different visual effect.

Having seen 1.5mm strips in use at the quilling workshop I went to recently, I knew that these ultra-thin strips would make it possible to create some very delicate motifs. In fact, the ladies I met on that occasion all said they would never go back to using 3mm strips again! Now, I'm not sure that I would go quite that far, but it does seem to me that the thin strips offer a lot of potential for use in combination with wider ones.

I quilled this card today, using a motif created with a standard width 3mm husking combined with some layered spirals and teardrops made using the 1.5mm strips. This approach makes it possible to layer quilling without adding to the overall depth, which is particularly important here in the UK where cards need to fit within a maximum 5mm width in order to avoid a mailing surcharge. I also like the way you can work within the background 3mm depth of the main husking to angle the narrower quillings that are layered.



Here are some close-ups to show you what I mean: