Meet Inna

It never ceases to amaze me. Give a bunch of quillers the same package of strips and no two will come up with the same design. We probably all start out learning the same basic shapes . . . and then watch us go.

Today I would like to feature Inna, who lives in Israel. An engineer by trade, Inna now stays at home with her three children and shares her love of crafts with them. She has tried her hand at many different crafts. About 10 months ago, her husband gave her a book “Paper Crafts Workshop” by Marie Browning which has a very nice 28 page section on quilling. She said “. . . it took me a bit to bring myself to try it; because I believed it’s too difficult”. Like many of us who are self taught, she soon realized it isn’t difficult at all. I happened on her blog and fell in love with the little quilled baby she has on the header of her blog.

Then as I continued to wander around, I saw her quilled Menorah where the quilled candles were set into quilled daffodils. (I wished I had found her when we were looking for quilling designs for the Jewish holidays for the 2007 and 2008 Accord calendars; but of course she wasn’t quilling then).

Inna has done some great tutorials on her site as well. The one on the “double fringed flower is especially helpful; it explains the technique in great detail. Jane Jenkins showed a fringe flower like this in her book “Quilling, Techniques and Inspiration”, but the instructions for it were very vague and hard to find. When this book first came out, I can’t even tell you how many calls we got about that fringed flower. Now we have a place to send everyone, Inna’s web site.
Another tutorial on quilled fringed flowers. This type is rather rear and I've never seen a detailed description of it. How to make regular fringed flowers I explained earlier. You will need double-sided coloured paper, scissors, glue, and a ready-made or DIY slotted tool or a wooden toothpick.

1. Cut a paper strip about 2-3 cm (1 inch) wide and 10 cm (4 inch) long. Fold it lengthwise.


2. Create a fringe by making small cuts at 45 degrees from the folded edge.



3. Attach to its end a regular — 3 mm (1/8 inch) wide and 25-30 cm (10 inch) long — quilling strip. This will make the centre of the flower.



4. Roll tightly using a toothpick or quilling tool, starting from the tip of the narrow strip.







You don't have to shape the petals, they will fluff up by themselves.



5. After the fringe is rolled up, glue its tip and hold for a couple of minutes to let the glue dry a little.





Now you can use your flower for a greeting card or any other purpose. In order to make a flower of the type shown below use only a wide strip. In this case it should be longer, about 20-30 cm (8-12 inch). Don't glue a narrow strip for the centre, start rolling the fringe right away.

Good luck!