Quilling Tool Lending Program/Quilling Teachers

Just in case you haven’t noticed . . . I love quilling. I am fascinated by “all things quilled”. I was so impressed with the “simple” designs quillers created for the Accord Calendar project a couple of years ago. Simple is in quotes because the projects were anything but. It took a great deal of creativity to create designs that used no more than 108” of quilling paper. I was blown away when I saw my first reliquary the year we had our quilling conference in Rochester, NY. My personal goals included creating my own quilling and helping to promote this little known art form. That’s why I worked towards organizing American quillers so many years ago helped in organizing what today has become the North American Quilling Guild. Of course, now I have Whimsiquills, the business that has taken over my home and a large portion of my life. I am still selling my work and of course selling supplies as well, but I find I don’t have much time left over. I don’t get to teach or demonstrate much anymore (unless we have a visiting quiller here at the studio). So how do I keep promoting the art?

We have come up with a program that I think is pretty unique, a lending program. When I talk to a scout leader or teacher who is planning to teach a group to quill . . . I tell them about our tool lending program. Most of these groups have a very limited budget (if any at all), so we send them the tools they need for their class at no charge, along with some other goodies (sometimes bookmarks or mat boards, whatever we have on hand). We also make sure they have links to our free patterns and instructional sheets which include things like a basic shapes chart and are all free and downloadable. We also encourage them to visit our blog http://www.quillingwithwhimsiquills.blogspot.com/ where we have all kinds of helpful info like teaching quilling. We have had an excellent response to this program.