Ready, quilling and able
This ancient craft might keep you entertained while we’re all indoors
SO, IT’S lockdown: working from home and social distancing. Time to decorate the bedroom, tackle the overgrown garden, clear out the garage, and that dripping kitchen tap needs a new washer. “So, while you do that,” I said to her, “these are my plans ...”
The words had barely passed my lips before the tables were turned. “I am going to revive some of the arts and crafts that Georgian and Victorian ladies passed their time with,” Mrs P announced proudly. “They’ll be antiques of the future.” Who am I to disagree? Her first foray into these lost arts is quilling. She got the idea from a birthday card made in Vietnam, pictured here, that she purchased some years ago and could never bring herself to part with. On the cover is an elaborate and elegant floral design, the leaves and petals of which are composed entirely of rolled paper. Printed on the back was the slogan: “Don’t just send a card, send art!”
She plans to copy it. “Good luck with that,” I whispered under my breath.
What I hadn’t realised was the popularity of the hobby today. It even has its own support group, The British Quilling Guild.
Fact is, the art has a history dating back to the earliest civilisations in the area around the Mediterranean and ancient Egypt. It was used originally to imitate delicate gold and silver filigree decoration seen in the Byzantium Empire.
The first paper mill was established in England in 1320 and it was from this period until the Reformation that rolled paperwork first appeared here. Purely an ecclesiastical craft, artists were employed by the poorer religious bodies to imitate the decorative precious metalwork embellishing the more wealthy churches.
Narrow scrolls of parchment or vellum were gilded on their cut edges or painted in bright colours and decorated with beads or threads of gold and silver to form a colourful background for religious sculptures.
The middle of the 16th century saw a revival of rolled paperwork in a more secular form. Pictures were expensive and rare, so filigree panels were created, glazed and used as wall decorations.
Backgrounds for the panels were made from creamy coloured parchment, vellum or hand-made paper, cut into narrow strips slightly more than an eighth of an inch wide and rolled into tight coils.
Other strips were rolled and shaped into spirals, scrolls, loops, volutes and cones or pinched into shape to form the required pattern.
The displayed edges of the resulting work were either left in their original state, resembling carved ivory or chip carving, or coloured or heavily gilded and burnished, resulting in a convincing mosaic.
Examples dating from this period show a marked use of projecting shapes such as cones. The designs were normally religious, heraldic or purely formal and surrounded crosses, cameos, hand-painted miniatures and mirror frames.
Heraldic work was particularly noted for its craftsmanship and colour.
Pictures were also created from wax figures costumed in rolled paperwork incorporating pearls, shells and metal threads.
Called filigree in those days, the modern name comes probably from the early years of the 18th century, when rolled paperwork was being created by North American Indians alongside other crafts, one of which was a particular type of appliqué embroidery called “quill-work”.
Animal hair and porcupine quills, pine needles, barberries, spines of feathers, silk, mica and ground glass were used to decorate moccasins, clothing and pouches and it is possible that in order to create the little bundles for use in decoration, paper was rolled tightly around the quills – hence “quilling”.
Once adopted as a pastime, the daughters of rich American families attended special schools to learn the craft and samples of their talents decorated the walls of their homes.
One of the most popular uses of quill-work was for decorating candle sconces. These were candle holders mounted on a backing and heavily surrounded with quill-work which was then framed by a box and glazed.
England saw a revival of filigree work in the 18th century, primarily as a pastime for ladies of leisure who, like their American counterparts, were taught by professional artist craftsmen.
By then the rolls of paper had lost the uneven appearance of the 17th century and instead they were generally flat.
Patterns were designed and sold through ladies’ magazines, much like knitting patterns are today.
In 1786, The New Ladies’ Magazine carried a series of 12 sheets of patterns, describing the hobby as
“an art to be pursued at a very trifling expense... it affords an amusement to the female mind capable of the most pleasing and extensive variety; and at the same time, it conduces to fill up a leisure hour with an innocent recreation”.
The art became a popular pastime once it was realised how it could transform an otherwise ordinary wooden box or utility object.
In 1791, Princess Elizabeth, daughter of George III, was supplied with “fifteen ounces of different filigree papers, one ounce of gold paper and a box made for filigree work with ebony moulding, lock and key, lined inside and outside”
She also made a shield-shaped panel for a pole screen, dated 1787, which is now in London’s Victoria and Albert Museum.
The Gentleman’s Magazine of the same period describes craftsmanmade octagonal or hexagonal shaped boxes made specially for the pastime with deeply recessed sides to hold designs. They were sold undecorated and were particularly popular with ladies’ colleges and boarding schools.
Ladies of leisure with sufficient time on their hands devoted hours working on designs for tea-caddies, workboxes, screens, cabinets, picture frames and even full-scale dioramas of landmark buildings.
The art was revived for a third time in 1875, when publisher William Bemrose produced a kit priced at five shillings (25p) providing raw materials and patterns, which he called “Mosaicon”.
The paper strips had a crimped edge, which produced wavy patterns and were used to decorate mirror frames, menus, bridge and other card games boxes, wood or leather matchbox holders, hat and hairpin boxes, cigar, cigarette and stamp boxes, watch stands, easels stationery boxes, blotters and more.
In an associated article “Floral Mosaicon”, as rolled paperwork was also called, is described as “a fascinating hobby which even the most fastidious cannot find fault”.
So ladies, get rolling.