Quilling Basics

In this post I will be sharing a little about how to quill. If you are unfamiliar with what quilling is, a short history compiled by the North American Quilling Guild can be found here.

According to their website, quilling has been around for hundreds of years, and was used for decorating religious texts, and taught to women during the Victorian era along with embroidery!

My adventure in quilling began about 2 and a half years ago when one of my friends let me have her quilling starter kit. It was Fall, so the perfect time to start making Christmas presents!

 Some of the 1st things I made were quilled cards for my parents and some Christmas tree ornaments for myself. But my very first attempt at quilling was just practicing the basics, and after making several pieces, I ended up finding a way to put them all together in a nice little picture:

My 1st quilling practice

Quilled Cards

Here are the basic tools and supplies you will need to start your own adventures in quilling:

Colorful paper strips of varying sizes (ie. 3mm, 7mm); slotted tool; quilling comb (a regular wide toothed comb works too!); needle tool, or something to apply glue with; glue; scissors; tweezers for the trickier designs; and an imagination! Some people also find a quilling board, like in the above picture, to help them make different shapes. I have tried using one, but prefer to just manually manipulate the paper:)

There are other tools you can use to add texture and help guide the slotted tool more easily. There's also a 3D mold I've tried:

Crimping tool, slotted tool guide, 3D mold, and 3D flower I made using these tools

So let's get down to the basics.

First, there are 2 main tools you can use to quill: the slotted tool and the comb. Each makes different kinds of designs with the paper.

The slotted tool makes a more spiral design, while the comb has a more complex inner structure.

When I first started quilling, I used the slotted tool.

The slotted tool has a small slot between the piece of metal where you insert the paper strip into:

I'm left handed so I like to hold the tool in my left hand and the paper strip in my right, but if it is more comfortable for you to hold them in your opposite hands then do so:)

Once the paper has been inserted, use your fingers to gently start rolling the strip around the tool:

You may have to make some small adjustments to make sure the paper is wrapping over itself and not going all over the place!

Once the paper is completely rolled up, it will look like this:

At this point, you can either choose to glue the end down, or to take it off the tool and allow it to uncoil some, depending on what size and shape you want. You can keep it tightly coiled like this, or let it open up and keep it round, or open it some and shape it into a rectangle, square, triangle, tear drop, or pretty much anything!

Examples of several sizes and shapes are at the beginning of this post in the picture of my 1st quilling practice:) As you can see in the picture, I chose to keep some tightly coiled and opened some others up into bigger circles, flower petals, and rounded triangle shapes.

The other main tool used in quilling is the comb. As mentioned before, you can either use a quilling comb or a regular wide toothed comb.

In order to begin, wrap the strip of paper around at least one of the teeth, or more for different patterns.

Continue wrapping the paper around more teeth of the comb:

Once all the paper has been wrapped around the comb teeth, put a dot of glue on the end to stick it down. You can also put some glue on the beginning end to help hold the middle together.

This is an example of the type of pattern you can create using the comb:

These make more intricate patterns for flower petals and whatever else you design!


Here are a few designs I have made to help get your creative juices flowing:

Owl, using both slotted tool (eyes,beak,feet) and comb (body, wings)

Flower using comb (leaves) and slotted tool with beehive technique (petals)

Roses- didn't use any tool, just my hands, very tricky!

Snowflake Ornament made with slotted tool

Snowflakes (or stars) made with 2 paper strips glued together to make more sturdy, with comb

As you can see, there are many ways to quill! I recommend trying out several different methods and seeing which ones you like the best. Although this is just a beginners guide, I hope you've found it helpful on your new journey into the land of quilling!

Happy quilling:)

Rachael