Quilled Name Plate - Sharon and Mårten

Hello All,

After almost a week of now-on, now-off work on this name plate, here it is, in all it's glory :) [Size: 22" x 14"]

Some details and WIP photos :)

And then, an insect decided to inspect my quilling ;) 

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)

A simple wall clock

Hello All,

A very quick post to write about a very simple quilling + punch craft clock I literally pulled out of the hat! :D It was too short a notice for me to do anything more elaborate :) Feedback welcome........

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)

Rapunzel, Rapunzel, Let Down Your Hair.........

Hello All,

If I say I've been bursting with things to say, I'd be grossly understating it........

After two months of working, here I unveil the very pretty, coy and colourful Rapunzel......

At the outset, let me clarify that this is NOT my design. The original of this is a digital painting by Barnali Bagchi, which has been adapted (heavily in places, actually) to quilling. I can never thank the lady enough for creating a stunning piece that I couldn't resist quilling.......

For the first time in my quilling career, I spent 1.5 months just figuring out how to convert this painting to quilling. And as usual, there were anxiety pangs about whether I could even make it at all!

The most daunting factor in this painting was its size. Massive is more like it. The painting stood at 3 feet x 4 feet and I literally stared at the blank board, alternating between escapism and determination. Finally, I got started and the first part (quillographed outline) was a song. Once the hair started, my nightmare began. It was only much later that Barnali was kind enough to inform me that the dame's name is Rapunzel! For almost 1 month, I made JUST tresses! Some snippets from the WIP (work in progress) times.......

Pre-beginning printout, which is a compilation of 8 prints of A3 size.....

Version 1 of the lady's face (which was scrapped to make a better once later)

A bit of progress :)

And this should put the size in perspective :)

The flowers getting added up

The never-ending tresses! Rapunzel indeed

Nearing completion

Version 1 of background, which gave way to a different one later on

Nearly over, just a little short of completion......

And one of those rare times when I have a photo of me working on the project :) Thanks to my husband for this :)

I also have to thank Manali for doing the beehiving on the right arm of the "moon" Rapunzel is perched on. Thank you to Richa too, for doing the left arm of the "moon" :)

Happy Quilling

Pritesh 

Peacock Edition 2

Hello All,

Back from an illness break and here we go - yet another peacock.........

When work has already started but the order gets cancelled, one doesn't quite feel like abandoning it! So here goes a project I loved making and had generous help with :) Thanks to Richa for being a backbone throughout :) This was to be my second blog anniversary post, so a bit belated, here comes the National Bird of India, the second time around. The first one made the life so easy, because I had finished struggling with the feathers already! :D

And some more details:

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)

Composite element flower petal tutorial

Dear All,

A couple of days ago, while working on a project, one of my students and I made this flower. It is a delightfully simple flower and here goes the tutorial for the same....... please note that we don't own the design. I am merely posting the tutorial because I was asked to....

The colours used are: White, dark pink, light pink and lavender

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)

Make your own half-pearls - Tutorial

Hello All,

This post may sound specific to Indian crafters but essentially can be used by crafters anywhere. In India, I find it particularly difficult to find large half pearls. In Pune, I still haven't been able to locate one single source. And besides, their colours are limited. So, what do I do? :D Make my own pearls, obviously! ;) Necessity is the mother of invention, after all! :D :D

Here is a picture tutorial.

Materials used:

1. Children's colour palette (available for Rs. 6 in Venus Traders, Pune). It should be easily available practically everywhere!
2. Air-dry clay (I bought mine from Panduro Hobby in Stockholm but it should be easily available in most stores. M-Seal and Polymer Clay are other options that should work).
3. Fevicryl pearl paints (I have used pearl metallic white here, but feel free to choose from nearly 25 shades available with them). In addition, you can create patterns on top as well! Feel free to experiment.........

These make very exciting flower cores, according to me :) So, whether it is a quilled flower or punch flower, this core will make it very easy for you to choose exactly what shade of the the "pearl" you want in the centre :)

Some follow-up pictures..........you can use a 3D mini-mold to make pearls in a variety of sizes. Like this:

And they end up looking like this (these are crude still, unpainted)

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)

Tutorial - Dimension addition to quilled flowers

Hello All,

I'm sure most of us have seen quilled flowers that are neatly off the base and look like you could pluck them off the board :) There exist methods to make such "dimension added" flowers. One of the methods is to use silicone (it's not silicon peoples, silicon is blackish blue in colour and very hard) glue. I, as a crafter, find it messy. Even as a researcher, I never found it an easy material to work with. Having cured silicone for almost a year for a research project will keep me away from it for life! :D

A sample of how flowers made using the technique demonstrated below can be used to make a frame:

So, I used a technique I had learnt in class II as a replacement, namely, using a paper cone. Here is a photo tutorial to demonstrate how.........this one goes out specially to Manjit Kaur Bhalla, who asked me for the tutorial :)

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)

Fringing flower video tutorial

Hello All,

Thanks to Internet snarls and power-cuts, after almost 1.5 days of making the video, here is the video for how to make the double fringed flower, for which I posted the technical terms (as I thought they should be termed :D) in a post. The video is not particularly great resolution, but if I made it any higher resolution, I'd spend a lifetime uploading it :(

This is how the flowers look:

And here's the video of how to make them :)

The photo tutorial (hear hear Sonia) is already there on Inna's blog. So, happy fringing and flower-making :)

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)

Fringing terminology tutorial

Dear All,

Once a scientist, always a scientist! :D So, when I got stuck trying to explain to a student how the various "parameters" of a double diagonal fringed flower correlate with the way the flower turns out to be, I had to sit down and assign terms to various parameters.

I don't know if someone else has done it already but I would go ahead and post a detailed one anyway. Please please refer to the original tutorial by Inna Dorman for these flowers.

Please feel free to ask for clarifications, if anything is not clear from the images and text. As you'll see in the tutorial made by Inna, this flower needs a paper strip to be folded horizontally and then, fringed. The image below is a very loose representation of the folded paper and puts a name to the various factors that affect how the flower turns out to be:

Now, coming to the explanation of various terms and how they influence the flower:

1. Fold width: Fold width is the width one gets after folding a long paper strip horizontally. The "diameter" of the final flower is determined most directly by the fold width. The resulting flower will at least be double the number of the fold width (e.g. if the fold width is 1 cm, the resultant flower will be at least 2 cm in diameter). Also, the more the folding width, the more the length of the strip will be needed for making a "fuller" looking flower. E.g. if the fold width is 1 cm, a 30 cm strip is enough to make a full looking flower. If the fold width is doubled to 2 cm, the length of the folded paper needed nearly doubles as well.

2. Fringing angle: Fringing angle is the angle at which you fringe. The smaller the fringing angle, the wider the flower will get. A nearly ideal angle to follow would be 45 degrees, but it is not mandatory. In my experience, this leads to best looking flowers. The smaller the angle the longer the paper you'll need as it takes more paper to give a fuller look to bigger flower. This is probably the most crucial of all factors in making a diagonal double fringed flower. While you fringe, maintain this angle constant for all fringes, or else, the flower will have uneven petals.

3. Fringing length: Fringing length is the total length of the cut made with scissors. For the same fold width, the smaller the fringing angle, the longer the fringe width will be. The longer the fringe width, the bigger the flower will be.

4. Fringing depth: Fringing depth is the horizontal distance between the folded edge and the end of the fringe cuts made. Fringing depth is directly correlated with the diameter of the eventual flower, in the sense that the deeper you cut (with everything else remaining the same), the bigger the flower becomes.

5. Fringing width: Fringing width is the width of each cut made while fringing. The smaller the fringe width, the easier it will be to get a Chrysanthemum like fullness to the flower. Making the fringe width too small, however, makes the flower lose its charm of two layers of paper opening up as you fringe. Around 1.5 mm gives a very full look to flowers.

Some pointers from experience:

• As you quill the double fringed layers, they tend to become cone like. The handling of the layers gets very tricky then. So, while making large double fringed flowers, take special care that the roll doesn't open up. 
• Too small a fringing angle (highly slanted cuts) increases the fringe length substantially and makes the flower big really fast. Try to keep the angle about as close to 45 degrees as you can manage to. It makes the flower look extremely good at the end.
• While starting rolling, try to keep the fringe cuts oriented such that the slant of the fringes is towards your left (for right handed people, that is). This will make sure the fringed cuts don't get entangled in your fingers as you roll). Thanks to Shweta Hardikar, she helped me figure this one out.
• After the flower is ready, you can press the central tight coil (if you used one) and also, gently press the petals to bring everything to level. 
• The flower assumes a dome like shape as you go on rolling. That makes it susceptible to opening up if not handled correctly.
• Glue at every 1 or 2 turns (Inna already tells you that through her tutorial). It helps make sure that the entire roll doesn't come off if the paper slips out of your hand.

I have tried to keep it as comprehensive and simple as I could manage to. Please feel free to correct me or ask me anything that is not clear. I may not reply immediately but reply I shall :)

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

Tutorial: Quillography style symmetric flower

Hello All,

While it is still fresh in the memory, here was the album I made using microquilling:

Lots of people askied me how I made that flower. Well, I don't know how it is supposed to be made but here is my take on making this flower :)

For those with unstable/slow Internet connections, here are the snapshots :)

Happy Quilling

Pritesh

PS: If my posts inspire you to create something on similar lines, I feel highly flattered. But please, do respect the effort I take in conceptualizing and executing, please give a direct link to my work when you are inspired by mine. Thanks for understanding........:-)