Quilling for a Baby Girl

It was a privilege to quill this piece for an adorable baby girl.  I attempted to coordinate the piece with the colors and theme of her nursery, but also wanted it to be something she could enjoy for years after she outgrows her nursery.

I primarily used colors from Lake City Craft’s Parchment collection, which are quite soft/pastel and were perfect for the look I was going for.  The bolder colors were added via the bluebirds and dragonfly to make them pop a little.  As usual, it was the formation of the letter that gave me the most trouble—I know it’s not a perfect “L,” but it was the best of all my attempts, so it stuck.

Surprisingly, I think the stemmed hearts hanging in front of the L are my favorite parts of this piece.  They were added after I thought it was completed… I went away to eat some dinner; when I came back and looked at the piece one last time before framing it, I realized I wanted a little more movement without adding more color.  The hearts did the trick!  I also appreciate that a heart symbolizes love and this happens to be a very much-loved little girl so I knew I couldn’t go wrong there. 🙂  I then added several other hearts to the piece, which appear to be leaves for the flowers.

The first photo is just to show how tiny the roses are… I had never done little roses before and they were quite fun and looked lovely, if I may say so.

… brought to you by the letter H

3 months is a long time to go without my beloved hobby… so when I was invited to a baby shower a couple weeks ago, I took it as a marvelous excuse to haul my quilling stuff out of storage.  Yay!

The baby isn’t due until August, but the parents (who I met through my sister and brother-in-law, have become quite dear to me as well!) have her name and nursery theme all picked out, so those are the 2 things I used to create this piece.

Flowers and lots of color—a quiller’s dream come true!  The photo below shows a sample of the fabric used in the nursery (so cute!):

I quilled flowers and butterflies to (sort of) match the fabric.  This photo shows the work in progress; you can also see some of the tools used in quilling (the glue is sitting upside down in a jar on top of a damp sponge so that it can stay open between uses without it drying out—this method also keeps the glue right at the top of the bottle so it comes right out when I need it) :

Once I mounted the flowers and butterflies onto the paper, I (of course) added 2 happy little bluebirds and an H to complete the scene.  Believe it or not, the H was the most difficult part of the project; I think it’s because the flowers and colors were all in front of me on the fabric sample—it’s fairly easy to look at something and copy it with quilling (at least in this case), but the H had to come from my own brain and I don’t have a lot of experience with uppercase H’s.  🙂    The only thing that I’ve changed since taking the photos is adding more glue under the H so it isn’t quite so ripply-looking on the parts that should be laying flat.

*happy sigh*… it was wonderful to quill again, and it was especially wonderful to quill for a little one who is already so close to my heart.