Quilling for a knitting fan

I saw lots of sheep on my recent holiday in Cornwall, and took a few photos with card-making in mind. Of course, I always like to do some quilling to complement a photo, so I thought I'd have a go at creating some knitting needles and a little ball of wool.

For this project, I joined a whole white 3mm quilling strip to a shorter length of crimped white, and rolled this all up to create a loose circle coil.  I thought the crimped section would add a little texture to the end of the ball of wool, and deliberately left a bit of it hanging loose after gluing. Then I cut another section of 3mm white strip in half to make a 1.5mm width, and cut short sections of it to create the criss-cross effect that you get with a rolled-up ball of wool. The needles were made out of short pieces of silver strips (again, cut down to a 1.5mm width) with tiny points cut at one end, and little T-sections added to the other.

Here's the finished card, showing the photo I took of a co-operative sheep that posed very nicely for me under a tree:

A quilled rhododendron

Last week we visited the fabulous gardens of Caerhays Castle in Cornwall which are only open for a few weeks at this time each year when the magnolia trees, azaleas and rhododendrons are in bloom. It was an amazing experience, and I have tried to capture some of the magic on this card.

The first thing you see is a fairy-tale castle nestling on a hillside with dramatic views over the sea. Then you realise that the castle is literally surrounded by flowering trees and shrubs which provide fantastic splashes of colour - mainly reds and pinks, but whites and yellows too. It's a spectacular sight, especially so early in the year when most of the 'normal' trees are still completely bare of leaves.

You can see the castle in the main photo on this card, and I've included some inset photos on a 'pink theme' to give some idea what the gardens are like. For the quilling, I've tried to create a typical cluster of rhododendron flowers (almost impossible, really!) using deep burgundy centres and metallic-edged pink strips for the surrounding petals. The leaves are made from crimped green strips.

Here's the quilling in close-up:

And here's a photo of the real thing! Stunning!

A new Easter card with sheep and some quilling

Driving around in Cornwall last week, we had to stop and let a large flock of sheep pass by. They went along at a gallop, but I managed to get a photo of them through the car window - and I've cropped it to use on this card. Aren't their faces sweet?

Sheep and lambs always remind me of Spring, and I decided to use some bright, warm, sunshiny background colours to make this design into an Easter card.


First I quilled the daffodils (to complement the smaller picture), and then I added a little border motif in three colours to go under the flock of sheep.

The idea for this motif pattern actually came from studying the strap of my wrist watch. Take a closer look, and you'll see a repeating pattern comprising marquise, eye and curved triangle shapes. I wanted to see if this would translate into quilling, and I think it's worked OK. Maybe there's potential here for a longer border piece?

I'm back on a roll with a new quilled flower!

Well, I'm happy to report that my new 'quilling' tool works brilliantly! (Please see yesterday's post to read about the felting needle that I bought last week for rolling coils - it's great!) I made teardrop shapes in two different sizes to create the quilled flower on this card, using the narrow end section of the tool for the inner petals (small centres) and the middle section for the outer petals (slightly larger centres). They rolled up effortlessly, and I really like the sturdiness of the tool which is, of course, designed for stabbing fabric with - it's easy to grip and very strong. I can definitely recommend it!

I don't know the name of the flower on this card, but I photographed it in the Mediterranean zone of the Eden Project in Cornwall where I visited last week - it's full of exotic plants, and a real feast for the eyes. I took loads of new pictures while I was away, and now it feels great to be back quilling once again!

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!

Shine on!

I'm still experimenting with those metallic-edged quilling strips, and I've found they work particularly well when double-rolled with a contrasting crimped strip to add texture.

To make this heart, for example, I joined together two teardrop coils created from a purple-copper edged strip rolled with a crimped pale blue one. (The blue strip also has a metallic edge, but it's quite hard to see it!)

Then I tried this triple-rolled combination to make another heart: purple/copper, crimped pale blue in the middle and plain purple on the inside, all joined together at one end before rolling. I really like the final texture and the shine.


Experimentation is all very well, of course, but I never like to see the resulting motifs go to waste.  So I made up another heart and created this card. I think the hearts look quite good on a grey background - just the thing to brighten up an otherwise grey day!

Petals, swirls and curls

Here's a new quilled card design that I've just finished. The background graphic was a pretty digital 'freebie' downloaded from the  Papers and Pixels blog. I'm sure it was originally intended for use in scrapbooking - but, being me, I couldn't resist trying to echo the image in quilling to create a card!

The pink petals make use of my new metallic edged strips, and I've used beige and gold strips wound together to create the long quilled swirls.

Credit for the background image is due to Coppercurl Designs.