posted on September 18, 2000 04:32:09 PM new
I picked up this cute little floral picture this weekend. It is made with tiny rolled up strips of paper. Does anyone know if there is a name for this craft? I'm sure there must be.
I actually bought it for the frame but I think this picture might sell if I could get it siasted properly.
posted on September 18, 2000 04:36:42 PM new
If I get what you are talking about it is called "quilling". It was very popular during the Victoria era and was making a come back about 5 years ago. It is time consuming but easy to do.
posted on September 18, 2000 04:42:18 PM new
tegan:
I used to work for a large craft mailorder business in the 70's & 80's. Sounds like you're describing a craft known as "Quilling"
The craft involved using a "quilling tool" to cut paper into strips, and curl them to make fancy, floral designs. Many were made for framing, as you describe. I think the company who produced kits for this was known as (what else!) QuillArt. Perhaps they are still around. Hope this helps Jerry
posted on September 18, 2000 07:05:28 PM new
This is the first post I've seen where everyone agreed on anything.
Maybe we should lock it now before we ruin the record>
posted on September 19, 2000 12:14:11 AM new
Maybe you should phone a friend - how 'bout Malinda Johnston:
From the cover of "The Book of Paper Quilling"
"Too often, the crafts of yesteryear fade away. Tastes change with time, interest dwindles, and skills are lost. Quilling, however, is one of the fortunate few that have survived. Although paper filigree has seen its periods of decline, and although very little early quillwork has been preserved, this age-old craft continues to provide immense pleasure to the people who now practice it.
The act of quilling paper is fairly simple. Strips of paper are first rolled around a needle-like instrument. Years ago, feather quills were probably used for this purpose. The rolls are then shaped, turned on edge, and arranged on a background of fabric, paper, or wood.
The first quillers were probably members of European religious orders. The cloistered nuns and monks created art of a religious nature and therefore had access to precious materials set aside expressly for this purpose, materials that were much less readily available within the secular world. And among these materials were handmade papers, less precious than gold or silver, certainly, but far more valuable than machine-made papers are today. Reliquaries embellished with intricate paper scrollwork can still be found in European museums.
By the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, paper was more widespread and much less costly. Its use in decorative crafts burgeoned, especially in England. There,
quilling was considered to be an appropriate hobby for the fashionable ladies of the time.
As a result, many women of the upper and middle classes became expert quillers. At least one women’s magazine described paper filigree in some detail, and others published
patterns. Princess Elizabeth herself gifted her physician with a quilled screen, one which is now at the Victoria & Alabert Museum. And even novelist Jane Austen, in Sense and Sensibility(1811), refers to a "fillagree" basket.
As well as baskets, other everyday items were elaborately decorated with quillwork: tea caddies of various shapes and sizes, trays, fire screens, and furniture, One tea caddy, in a collection of eight at the Victoria & Albert Museum, is kept in its original box. The papers’ vivid colors have therefore been preserved and offer fine testimony to the skill and creativity of the caddy’s maker.
Paper filigree pictures were also popular; coats of arms and floral designs were favorite themes. Many designs combined quilling with other paper-craft items: cut- paper flowers, folded paper, crimped paper (pressed into small ridges), and huskings (loops made by wrapping paper around upright pins). Furniture, too, was decorated with quillwork, which was set into recessed areas in cabinet doors and drawers.
Quilling spread from England to the American colonies, where it found a home in the New England area. So popular did this craft become that newspaper advertisements for some boarding schools listed "Quill-Work" among the subjects taught. Most of the American pieces still in existence are sconces (wall brackets for candles) that were made during the period between 1825 and 1850. The Quillwork on these was often embellished with shells, wax flowers, twisted wire, and mica or ground glass. The fine particles of rock and glass must have looked wonderful by candlelight.
In the Colonial Williamsburg collection, in Williamsburg, Virginia, there are two cribbage boards, made sometime between 1790-1810, a late eighteenth century tea caddy, and an English three-dimensional picture of a castle. A document discovered inside the castle states: "To the person who destroys this paper-fillagree castle built and Notttingham. This castle built in the year of our Lord 1789 by Susanna the wife of Will III Streetton during the imprisonment of the royal family of France in the thuilleries, and in the memorable year in which the Bastile was destroyed."
For reasons that aren’t clear, quilling’s popularity seems to have faded during the late 1800s. Not until the middle of this century did quilling re-emerge. Today, thanks to the enthusiasm, knowledge, and skills of quillers everywhere and to the Quilling Guild of England (including members from around the world), this captivating craft is back to stay."
From the cover of her book "The Book of Paper Quilling"
Jerry 
