Commissions, gifts, and RAKs

I've not blogged for a while, but I have been busy! With lots of babies arriving to friends, I was kept busy making quilled baby feet canvases, so there's another half dozen of them done ( a few are shown below), some have been personalised and sent off, some are waiting for the details of the recipients (AKA for the babies to arrive) so they can be personalised.

During April, I had a lot of physical work to do in my workplace, and to keep my morale up and keep me motivated, I offered some decorated pebbles to the people who best guessed my progress at 4 set points during the main activity day.

I also had a weekend long resin jewellery making class booked, where I experimented with putting quilled bits into the resin. These were the pieces I made, ready for me to drill and mount as necklaces. All I need to do next is find the time to make these sort of necklaces properly, and then put them in my shop: these were just tests with pieces of quilling that I had lots of, or could make quickly to fill spaces.

Then lovely V's birthday was coming up, so I wanted to make her something made of "V"'s, and I started doodling...which quickly became these dandelion clock postcards, that are based around the use of the letter V in varying sizes. I really rather like the design, and have since made and given away a few more of these postcards. I'm also thinking of offering a hand drawn one of them in return for sponsorship of over £5 for a future event I want to do.

As the virtual desktop system at work had some major issues that prevented me getting on to work for a day, I also did a lyrics postcard to occupy myself: this was the lyrics of "Happy" by Pharrell, which ended up with a colleague.

I had a commission in early June for a christening gift for a friend's godchild, with a bit of a difference for me: the text would be both in English, and Hungarian! My friend guided me on the shape she wanted it in, and got a friend to do a transcription of the Hungarian text.

Then, I did a test drawing to see how the verse spacing worked.

Then a second version, with the best text spacing. I added a pencil outer line, where the Hungarian text would be going.

Once I had the translation, I wrote it out in pencil to make sure that the spacing was right, then overwrote it with ink, before removing the under writing. This is the finished dove on the slope I work on, and the handwritten Hungarian transcription I was working from.

I took some nice photos of the finished dove, but they're on my camera, and...erm...I don't know where I've put it! So, the picture above is both languages, but the Hungarian text still has the pencil version under it (which is why it looks a bit thick/odd).

This was a gift for a friend, with words that have a personal meaning for them.

I also promised another friend a gift, and they decided on a literary themed image, in this case Poirot. Thankfully, this one worked out perfectly first time!

Still on the paper pad where I drew it.

Cropped to better effect!

So, although I've not blogged it for a while, I HAVE been crafting, and I have been sending craft RAKs - but I'm sure I've missed out some RAKS from here too. So, if I've sent you something and it's not mentioned here, can you let me know? I'm keeping a spreadsheet, so I can distribute RAKs randomly, but not overly favour anybody with too many things!

Massive mallard

A friend asked if I would be able to make a quilled mallard, and after checking some photos and drawings to see if it was possible, I decided to give it a shot.

The process of making a new quilling design involves me drawing a sketch of what I want to make, and breaking it down into the constituent shapes. In this case, I knew I needed the green head, black eye, yellow beak with black tip, a white neck band, brown chest, brown edged wing, grey lower body/back of neck, a black and white undertail, and orange legs. I also select the best colour match to the real thing, so I spend a while looking at lots of photos to see what's the closest shade of quilling paper that I have.

Then, it's a process of trial and error, of seeing what sizes the various lengths and colours of strips become as I roll them up (certain shades of paper are stiffer and uncoil to a larger size than others) and figuring out how to things the various constituent shapes together. This can involve coating the backs of shapes in glue and clamping them in order to form and hold a specific shape (like the white neck bar). From experience, I tend to know how large things will end up being, but when there are awkward shapes involved, it may mean a few attempts to make the right fit. I tend to work on a plastic surface, so if there's excess glue that squeezes out, the quilled piece can be detached from the work surface easily....in this case, I was working on top of a plastic case holding a printout of a map of Korea (as you do).

Once all the pieces come together, I double check that I've noted onto the original sketch the lengths of papers and colours I've used. That sketch will then be redrawn into my master book of designs, so I can recreate it in future.

And then...done! A mallard! It's bigger than I usually make, but I think it's worked out really well! *chuffed face*