Quilling Techniques & Tips - How to Standardise Size of Hand Quilled Petals

This Tutorial and tips as promised in my Orange Blossom post are on how to make same size petals when quilling manually or without tools. This is for all of you, who like me, find it difficult to get the sizes of all the petals equal and end up getting annoyed with yourself!!

I have been wracking my brains when the answer was right in front of my face.... Stencil!! That's right!! Stencil   !!. The age old concept of making one and using it to make the others!!

I am going to take my multilevel looped petal which I used in Flower Shower as an example. You can find the tutorial here.

Step 1

Take the strip of your choice and fold the petal to the required size as shown above, but do not glue anything.

Step 2

Now make sure you pinch all the areas that get folded and glued, hard, so that the impression remains even after you unwind it.As you can see above the folded areas have a sharp edge.

Step 3

Now straighten the curved or looped bends ( the loop areas will be blunt) by scoring with your thumb nail to straighten it so that it looks zig zag like above instead of a step like the previous pic.

Step 4

This strip is your stencil or guide strip. Use it to help you measure the length and fold the rest of your petals. Make note of the direction of the fold, up then down. Now glue the petals at the fold making the identical petals. 

Tips

This method can be used for any hand made petal. Simply straighten the curved areas and emphasize the folds on the stencil/ guide strip.

You can take several strips and fold at one go but if accuracy is required do it one by one as the thickness of the strip will cause a margin of error on the strip above it.

Blunt the curved area if you desire a more rounded petal that is wider on top.

Apply very little glue and hold till dry before continuing. This will take longer but will prevent the bottom from becoming soggy with glue.

When encircling, make sure it is not too tight and you can glue the loops very lightly to the encircling strip to make the petals more stable.

You can measure and use same length strips to ensure that the petals are of the same size. 

When handling the petals try and use forceps and avoid handling the looped end.

When assembling, arrange the shape to your satisfaction first and then take the petal one by one and glue them to have better control over the shape of the flower.

If you need to apply glue to the same area repeatedly, allow to dry before you apply glue again to prevent the strip from tearing.

If you are using shapes that unwind, glue them after they unwind to the required limit and direction to prevent them unwinding further and creating large gaps over time.