The History of Quilling
Quilling is the art of rolling, coiling, and shaping small strips of paper to create a cohesive three-dimensional design. Historians have dated the art form back to ancient times, when crafters would use a bird’s feather (quill) as the tool to coil the paper upon. Quilling most notably made its mark throughout the Western world. During the Renaissance, nuns and monks would trim gold-gilded paper from books and quill the pieces into decorative designs to adorn religious objects. This practice was used in place of working with costly gold filigree. In later years, quilling grew to be a leisurely pastime of affluent women throughout Europe. Women practiced quilling to embellish household décor such as picture frames, baskets, and jewelry boxes. Quilling eventually found its way to America through the pilgrims. Today, Quilling Card is the premier source of preserving and sharing this beautiful art form, striving to keep it alive and flourishing.
The Process
People practicing quilling today are afforded many options for tools and an array of different weight, quality, and thickness of paper. There are a few ways to approach beginning a design. For our line, we assign each artist one design for the most efficient workflow. This way, she can get to know the design and create a consistency in her work and our final product. We begin each card with a preliminary drawing of what the card will be. Using a slotted needle tool, we ‘thread’ laser-cut strips of kishu paper (a high-quality, Japanese paper) through the tool and coil it around to create a tight coil. Each shape that makes up a card begins as a tight coil. From there, the coil is relaxed and molded with fingers or tweezers until the desired shape is attained, and is then glued down onto the card. This process is repeated again and again, until the quiller has layered on the entirety of the final design.
