Matting Your Quilling Part # 2

Matting your work –Part 2

When my husband went to framing school, (he really went because we needed to learn more about framing so I could frame my quilling) it opened a whole new world to me. As I explained in Part 1, I learned to work out the back of frames so I could use all different kinds of frames that previously I believed would not accommodate quilling. Quite a few pieces in the custom pieces folder are in what would be considered regular frames, (not shadowboxes). The mats are attached to the back of the frame. But today we are going to be talking about the matting, which is just as important, maybe even more so, than the frames.

There are lots of things to take into consideration when you choose matting for your work. The colors mats you use on a given piece can make it look very rich (like ivory on ivory), dramatic (black and white) or fun (like the primary colors in the cat in the hat piece. You can use soft neutral colors or strong vibrant colors. You can choose colors based on what colors are in the piece, for example you can be matting a multi colored bouquet of quilled flowers and change the whole “feel” of the piece by the colors of the matting. I like to do floral on a fairly neutral background mat so the quilling shows well against the background. Then I choose colors that are in the quilling for the matting; if I want to keep the piece on the neutral side, I might do the matting in soft shades of green, picking up the colors from the greens in the piece. If I want the piece to stand out a little more, I might use one of the other colors in the piece, for example: if I have lavenders in the piece, I might mat the piece with a lavender mat and a darker purple mat liner or I might choose another color from the flowers, like light blue with a darker blue mat liner.

Rather than just putting the quilling on a mat and framing it, I like to use the mat to create a “frame” within the mat. You can see examples of this on the Unicorn, Quilled filigree cross, and the Victorian fan. All three of those pieces are done on suede mats. Instead of just framing the pieces, I created a frame within a frame by cutting a second mat (in the same suede) and raising it slightly to give the piece a little depth and to draw the eye right to the quilling.

When I do butterflies and birds, I like to use an oval
opening with a v-groove. I usually have the quilling extend beyond the mat opening; I think it is a more interesting look. There are so many interesting things you can do with matting, especially if you are adding quilling. In the Florida Gulf Coast piece in the pics/Custom Works folder the “sand” at the bottom of the frame is a second mat which I hand cut to fit across the piece, the blue sky is a second mat which I put behind the “sand”.

Matting can come to the rescue when you are working with ready made frames and have an item that just isn’t the right size or shape for the frame, especially if you are going to be adding quilling to the piece. Let’s say you have a long narrow invitation that needs quilling/matting/framing. I will, either mat the invite off to one side and do the quilling down the other side, or I might center the invitation and then do some quilling on either side of the piece. I’d like to give you visuals for all of these examples, but rather than having you hop around between picture files and the blog, I’m going to see if I can figure out how to link the visuals in the blog itself. If any of you know how to do this . . . HELP!!!! If not I will keep working at figuring it out, but I am going to post this anyway . . . you’ll just have to come back to see the pictures! Pretty sneaky, huh?