Quilling Conference - NAQG, Day Two

Meeting Jane Jenkins!

It's past time to wrap up my visit way back in May to the NAQG conference in Nashville!  My first post on day one can be found here.

Weaving - Harder than It Looks.

Day two opened with a weaving class.  I've not done much but the most elementary weaving in the past, so this was very interesting for me.  I enjoyed the class, especially meeting Quilling illuminary Jane Jenkins!  Still, I don't think I'm going to be doing a lot of weaving in the future - not because I don't like it - but because I don't like pins!  So many pins!  I really don't enjoy keeping track of all those sharp bits of metal around my craft area.  Seriously, that's just one of my issues.  Every single line has two pins to hold it down.  If I'm going to be weaving, I need to find a new way to secure strips for the process.

My gifted quilled elephant!

Cards and gift tags I made in free time.

I spent the late morning and early afternoon in free quilling.  Just sitting around with other quillers and having fun.  I quilled some cards, name tags, and more, while new friends quilled other marvels.  One of which was a wonderful quilled elephant with dragonflies!  I loved it immediately, and was thrilled and humbled when the artist presented it to me to have, for my very own!  We also saw a few people from the general public come in, and they stopped by our table very briefly.  But we were no match for the draw that Jane and her husband Paul were making at a nearby table, quilling 'fluffy' teddy bears.

Buddha under Bodhi Tree

I spent some time wandering through the competition/display room.  This is a room where both competition and general display items were available for attendees to check out.  Any registrants for the conference could ask to have some portion of a table set aside to display some of their work.  And of course various competition categories also had work on display (although without names.)  This made it a little difficult to figure out who did what piece of work.  My favorite, a Buddha, was done by an artist whose name I still don't know!  That was one of the points of the competition that was a little frustrating - since winners were announced at the last minute at the banquet, one never really got a chance to find out who did what piece of art.

The evening entertainment was live music and a banquet.  We had a wonderful time together, listening to local music and enjoying the raffle.  I really enjoyed watching my table-mates root for one another as various pieces in the raffle came up.  Many classic pieces of quilling were donated for the raffle, and were given as gifts for each one of us!  These quillers were very generous.

Examples of pieces under judging -
my Halloween Sampler is on the right!

And then it was time to go home.  I really had hoped there would be more time after the banquet to peruse the art in the display room and figure out who had done what!  But the art was removed quickly ... I was not ready to go!  But the conference was over, and planning for next year has begun!

All in all, it was a great event, and I'm trying to see how I can fit another May trip (this time to Tampa) in my travel schedule for May 2017.

Image credits - All pictures taken by me at the NAGQ 2106 conference.

Preparing for a Quilling Conference

I'm soon off to attend my first quilling conference!  This is the North American Quilling Guild's 2016 Con, this year in Nashville, TN.  I thought I wasn't going to be able to attend, but as it is, I'm on work travel not too far away just before the conference.  So I have the opportunity to pop on over and spend the weekend steeped in quilling.  I really hope it's as fun as it sounds, and that I get to spend time meeting new people who enjoy quilling as much as I do!

Still, it was difficult for me to figure out what I had to do to prepare for this conference, and even now I think I might not really be ready.  Not everything one needs to know as a first timer is in one place.  So many people are repeat attendees they probably assume everyone knows how long the con is, when you can register, if there are group events, if there are public events or demos, etc.  Now that the agenda is out, that information is all available, but I didn't know a lot of it when I was making my travel plans many months ago.

I realized rather late in the game that I needed to make my own thematic name tag.  I eventually managed to find a bit of time this afternoon to put one together, a little banjo with some musical notes.  It's pretty basic, but it will do.  The next time I can go to this conference I hope to be able to spend more time on the name tag.  It is a fun idea, and will make a nice keepsake. 

I registered for the contest, but was unable to complete the piece I'd hoped to bring.  So I'm bringing another one.  My fault entirely, I have no idea if I can change pieces at this late date.  But I'll bring a project and see.  Annnnnd then I realized I did not have new business cards for the blog, here!  My cards still have the old blog name.  So I quickly mocked up some cards and printed them at home on card stock.  Not as nice and spiffy as they could be, but hopefully they will serve the purpose.

I didn't even know I had to sign up for classes until it was almost too late to do so.  I blithely assumed I'd just show up and go to whatever classes floated my boat.  But it makes a lot of sense to assign people a priori.  That way there is a good balance, no one instructor is left alone or overwhelmed, and people can plan for how much and what materials to bring with them.  Oh yeah, the materials.  That's another interesting situation for me, since I never check bags when I fly.  But I'm going to have to check for this flight, what with all the quilling tools, scissors, pliers, and other odd devices I'm bringing with me.  Technically, they are all small enough to get through security, but I don't feel like trying to deal with that if someone is weirded out by my odd little paper craft.

Another last minute item that worked in my favor was that they were still looking for volunteers for Saturday afternoon to do demos and take-aways with the general public.  I love stuff like that, and am looking forward showing a few folks how great quilling is, and maybe making someone a quiller-for-life!

Image credit:  All my own stuff, and all my own pictures of that stuff.

Book Review: Pretty Quilled Cards

Pretty Quilled Cards by Cecelia Louie.  Published by Lark Crafts, Sterling Publishing Company, 2014.  127 pages. (Review updated Aug 7, 2016)

I rate it ... very good!

4.0/5.0

See my post about book reviews for details about my review criteria and biases.

Pretty Quilled Cards is subtitled "25+ Creative Designs for Greetings and Celebrations."  I rarely put quilling on greeting cards, since such cards are hard to keep and store without marring the quilling (unless you leave them out or frame them.)  But I certainly have made quilled cards on occasion, and this book has a bevy of new designs for lovers of cards, tags, and such like.  I was also thrilled to find a quilling book with a relatively recent (2014) date - as I am looking to learn new techniques and am always on the hunt for new ideas.

It is a little difficult to rate the book, because it represents a significant departure from the "traditional" or even "modern" quilling in the books of the 2000's.  This book has more "innovative" or "new wave" quilling - emphasizing very loose coils and open outlines, rather than tight, lacy coils and borders that are completely filled in.  In fact, a lot of this isn't what I'd call quilling at all but instead "Paper Outlining" or "Paper Line Art" or even "Paper Collage."  This can be misleading for new quillers.  There are techniques in this book like 'softening' and 'scraping' that you won't find many other places.  The projects themselves are a little strange in terms of how they are presented, because every single strip of paper is shown with the necessary fold marks on it.  In other words, these designs show you specifically how and where to fold every single crease in every strip of paper.  This is different from other books, so it takes some getting used to.  So comparing this book directly to the other books I've reviewed isn't as straightforward as it could be.  But I'll give it a shot :)

What I liked:
New ideas and new designs.  Almost every project has something in it, however small, that I haven't seen elsewhere.  Even if it is just a trick of folding the paper, there is something new to be had.  The book is well illustrated and photographed, with lots of color pictures of projects.  The projects are highly detailed with copious instructions.

What I liked less:
The tutorial for beginners is not straightforward, and could cause some confusion.  There is a lot of coiling, opening, and recoiling of strips to achieve the effect the author wants to see in their quilling.  This may be necessary to achieve the very specific look and effects of this book, but is not at all necessary for many other forms of quilling.  This isn't mentioned, and a beginner could come away with the idea that this book shows the 'right' way to quill, and other books are 'wrong' rather than simply thinking of this as a different approach.  (Or perhaps a different craft altogether, such as "Paper Line Art" or simply "Paper Craft" etc.)  The projects often require use of a copier, or even color copier to get all of the pieces necessary - rather than emphasizing the use of materials a quiller might already have on hand.  There is no ancillary material at all, i.e. history, gallery of ideas, etc. (you know my bias.)

I wouldn't recommend the book for a beginner.  However, a practiced quiller who is looking for ideas for cards will find much to entertain themselves with here.  I'm glad it is on my shelf, even for the relatively high going price of a new, recent book (from $15 to $20).

Quilled Halloween Sampler

I've been considering making a sampler of quilled Halloween projects for a long time.  I love Halloween, and often use small designs and motifs on place cards, tags, ornaments, wall art, and more.  I've never bothered to actually write down any of my designs before - so they come out differently every year, AND I have to spend extra time and paper trying to figure out what I did the last time around :)

So this year I spent the time and effort to record all my paper widths, lengths, and shapes as I worked.  I also took a few pictures of the intermediate stages as I went along.  I realized when I was close to finished that I might not be the only person who would like to use the directions.  So to make up some of the resources I used, and to cover some of the time (it took a loooong time to write this up), I decided to post all the instructions for a fee over at Craftsy.  So if you are in immediate need of some ideas for Halloween, look no further!  You can download all 16 pages of Halloween packed PDF for $3.99.

OR if you can wait, and don't have the extra $$, then keep your eyes here on the blog.  I'm going to post all the instructions in pieces right here between now and Halloween!

Here's the blurb from over at Craftsy:

The Quilled Halloween Sampler Instructions will tell you how to make nine different small Halloween themed projects (plus a bonus project!). The 16 pages are packed with pictures and ample details of paper quilling for you to recreate the sampler, or use it to come up with your own scary ideas!

These spooky designs can be used together to form a framed Halloween sampler group, or they can be used separately on greeting cards, gift tags, place settings, ornaments, wall art, or in whatever way suits your fancy! You can be creative and detour from the exact directions whenever it suits you and your project needs.

Some of the projects are very quick, while others are a little more involved, so you can fit the projects to the time you have available. Most of the designs are suitable for someone who knows the basics of paper quilling (beginner), while a few others are suitable for an intermediate level of quiller.

Most of the designs and motifs will be familiar, like bats and pumpkins, while others will be more unusual, like vampire fangs and skeleton keys. Let your creepy side out and enjoy some Halloween fun with the Quilled Halloween Sampler!