A buzz about the beehive!

Thanks to the internet, it doesn't take long for word to spread about new quilling techniques ... and this week the spotlight has been firmly focused on Susan's 'beehive' method for filling in quilled shapes. If you follow this link to her blog, you'll find photos of some brilliant jewellery she has made, plus a link to a very helpful video tutorial that's been recently produced by Pritesh.

The 'beehive method' seems to take the 'scribble technique' a stage further through the creation of a series of closely positioned swirls right along the length of a quilling strip using a slotted tool. The resulting swirls can then be bundled loosely together and dropped into a shaped open ring coil where they then open out to fill it up completely.

I thought I'd have a try at 'the beehive' by creating this new pendant.  However, instead of tightly packing my teardrop-shaped outer ring with swirls, I decided to try leaving a little bit of space around them for the background to show through.

For this piece, I've used a combination of orange and black 1.5mm metallic-edged strips mounted on to a double-ply punched cardstock base that's been topped with pearlised gift wrap. (The strips actually started out as 3mm ones which I cut in half by hand.) I quite like the gilded effect that the strips produce, and I'm pleased with the way the colours work together to create contrasting areas of swirls.

I'm sure that tightly packed swirls also have great potential for use in flower petals, butterfly wings etc, and I've no doubt that many quillers across the world are working on similar projects right now. In fact, I think we'll be hearing a buzz about 'the beehive' for quite some time to come!!