I live in a fairly rural part of Maine, and though I can see the large lake nearby from the highest part of my property, for all intents and purposes, I live in the woods. One of the amazing things about where I live is that between May and June my property is peppered with Pink Lady’s Slippers. So, it was only natural that I created a this Quilled Lady’s Slipper Tutorial based on one of my favorite local flowers.
Last summer I managed to transplant a Lady’s Slipper from the outskirts of my lawn to a shady rock wall garden I have closer to my house. I’m hoping that this spring I discover it still alive, though I’m not entirely hopeful as these plants require a specific type of fungus in the soil to thrive.
I’m publishing this tutorial for free and you can either follow along via this web page or download the PDF file I have created. Whichever works best for you.
INTRODUCTION
Thank you for purchasing my Quilled Pink Lady’s Slipper Tutorial. The techniques required to complete your Lady’s Slipper are all what I would consider as being suitable for beginners. If you understand the basics of quilling, you should be able to use this tutorial to create a similar 5” x 7” Pink Lady’s Slipper of your own.
MATERIALS NEEDED
- Quilling Tool (slotted or needle)
- Fine-Tipped Scissors
- Fine-Tipped Tweezers
- Crafting Glue (I recommend Elmer’s)
- Standard Length and Weight Quilling strips (any brand or width should work although I recommend ¼” for extra depth and shadowing)
- A Quilled Creations circle sizer (optional)
- Rule (if you don’t have a circle sizer)
COLORS NEEDED
- Light Pink
- Medium Pink
- Light Green
- Medium Green
BASIC STRIP SIZING
I do not generally measure my strips. Instead, I use a technique of fractions. What I mean by this is that for the major quilling suppliers that offer 17-17.5” long paper, I create my artwork using fractions of the strips.
Think of it in terms of a full strip, ¾ strip, ½ strip, ¼ strip, and so on. I will provide the “measurements” for each piece of the flower.
Pink Lady’s Slipper Parts
dorsal sepal & lateral petals
You will be creating two almost identical pieces for the Dorsal Sepal and Lateral Petals. The difference between the two being that the Dorsal Sepal on my example flower is slightly smaller. However, they can all be the same size if it’s easier for you.
Note: If you make your main leaves slightly smaller, you can get away with making all three of these pieces the same size.
Step One
Take two full length medium green strips and one ¾ length medium green strip and form loose coils. If you happen to have a circle sizer, place two inside the “0” size slot to make the largest size coil and one inside the “1” slot for the smaller. This will create both Lateral Petals and one Dorsal Sepal.
If you do not have a circle sizer, you want to try to get the diameter of these two larger closed coils close to 1”. The “1” circle sizer has a diameter of ¾”.
Use your tweezers to hold the ends in place so that when you glue them off into closed coils, they don’t accidentally change size.
Note: You should have three glued-off, closed coils when you’re done with step one. The goal here is to have the both lateral petals nearly identical in size when you’re done.
Step Two
Form all three closed coils into teardrops.
Step Three
Step Three involves wrapping the outside of the three tear drops with the lighter shade of green. This creates a subtle highlight to the teardrops and adds depth to the design.
To do this, I recommend placing a small dob of glue on one side of the pointy end of the teardrop and joining the end of the light green strip to it. Then simply wrap it around and around until you get to the end of the strip. Glue it off wherever the seam ends.
Why don’t we just glue the two colors together? Because that makes the petals too bulky. Putting two full strips inside the “O” circle size or two ¾ length strips inside the “1” circle size, crams them all in and doesn’t have the effect I prefer. But, if doing it the other way is easier for you, please don’t hesitate to do it your way. My way is just a suggestion.
Step Four
Now that you have wrapped your Dorsal Sepal and the two Lateral Petals, you need to give them that special “polliwog” shape. It’s basically a teardrop that has been bent twice to make a sort of “S” shape on the tail end.
To get the correct bend, hold the wrapped teardrop in one hand and while pushing up with your thumb, pinch with your thumb and forefinger on the other hand and pull up.
I suggest that you practice making this shape a few times so you can get the shape correct as well as keep them uniform in size.
STEP FIVE
The final step of creating these three parts is forcing them to keep their shape and narrow width. There are three ways of doing this.
But first, the most important thing for you to do right now is dry fit these three pieces so you know which direction is up and which is down for the next part. If you notice, they all have specific curvature and the left and right sides are opposite curves. Since you will be doing some heavy gluing during this next part, you need to know which is the bottom for both the left and right laterals so you don’t accidentally glue the tops.
Dry-fitting is simply placing the individual parts where they should go in the finished piece without gluing them together or gluing them down onto a background.
First Method
Shape the piece into the s-drop and hold it with your tweezers to keep it narrow. Flip it over and apply glue to the bottom. Hold it while it dries. This should keep everything where you want it. If it springs open, use a needle or pin to push glue up inside the coils so they grab better.
SECOND METHOD
If you have a workboard, you can place glue the bottom of the parts and instead of holding them while they dry, place them on the workboard and use pins to hold them in the correct shape and width. In this case, you’re just substituting tweezers for pins…and of course, it’ll be hands free. You could set them all up on your workboard and leave them to dry while you do other things.
THIRD METHOD
Wait until the very end and pinch these parts into the correct shape and width at the same time you glue them onto the background so that the act of gluing them down provides the hold necessary to keep them thin and curve into an s-drop.
the staminode
STEP ONE
Take a 1/8 length strip of the dark pink color you have chosen and create a closed coil. If you are using a Circle Sizer, you will use size “6”. If you don’t have one, the diameter should be roughly 5/8”.
STEP TWO
Pinch the closed coil to create a teardrop.
STEP THREE
Using a 1/8 length strip (roughly 2”) of either of the two shades of green you have chosen (it doesn’t really matter), wrap the teardrop, making sure you glue both the first end where you start, as well as gluing off the tail end.
THE LABELLUM
STEP ONE
Glue a full length light pink strip to a full length medium pink strip. Create a loose coil using size “0” of your Circle Sizer, or, a diameter of roughly 1”.
Remove the open coil from the sizer and let it open a tiny bit more. You’ll want both of these to end up as a closed coil that is roughly 1 1/8” to 1 ¼” in diameter.
Glue the open coil off to create a closed coil.
This is probably the trickiest step in the whole tutorial. If you are having trouble with it, you can just leave it at the 1”. I just prefer this part to be slightly larger than an inch as it allows the coils to open up a bit more than when cramming them into just a single inch.
STEP TWO
In order to make the Labellum look as realistic as possible, it needs to be a teardrop with a really tight, curved end. If you have ever seen a Paisley pattern, it’s this shape. The term for it is a boteh or buta – which is a teardrop shape with a curved end.
The easiest way to make these is to start the curve with your fingers and once you have just the very end portion curving in the correct direction, continue sharpening the curve by rolling it around the barrel of your quilling tool. An ink pen would work just as well.
The concept is to only affect the very end and not compress the middle or bulbous end of the teardrop.
Tips:
- The goal is to create two of these pieces that are nearly identical in size and shape. Don’t hesitate to make a few of these so you have at least one nicely matched pair. I made three in order to get a single pair that matched well.
- These should be roughly 1.5” long when done correctly.
THE MAIN LEAVES
STEP ONE
The small main leaf takes five full length strips of medium green and two full length strips of light green. Glue them together, end-to-end as follows:
dark-dark-dark-dark-dark-light-light.
You will begin coiling this on the medium green end as you want the medium green on the inside of the coil and the light green on the outside of the coil.
STEP TWO
When you let this tight coil release, it’s very important to keep your fingers around it so it doesn’t just spring open and uncoil and make a mess. So, hold the edges with your fingers and slowly expand them, allowing it to release in a controlled fashioned. Let it expand until it’s approximately 2” in diameter. Use your tweezers to hold the end against the coils so it doesn’t continue opening up, and glue it off into a closed coil.
STEP THREE
The large main leaf consists of fifteen full length strips. Ten of the medium green and five of the light green. If you want your main leaf slightly smaller (mine is on the larger size!) just reduce the amount of strips used.
Glue the medium green strips all together, end-to-end, and then join the five light green strips to them. The pattern should be as follows:
medium-medium-medium-medium-medium-medium-medium-medium-medium-medium-light-light-light-light-light
As with the small leaf, beginning coiling this on the medium green end so that color is in the middle of the coil. This will make a very, very large tight coil so go slow and be careful so it doesn’t blow up on you.
STEP FOUR
Take the large coil you just made and allow it to slowly release until the diameter is approximately 3”. Tweeze the end so you can glue it off into a closed coil without it changing diameter size.
STEP FIVE
For each of the large closed coils, now is the time to arrange the coils so they are more evenly placed. With large coils like this, they don’t always open up with a perfect spiral. Sometimes you have to pull them a bit to get them to space better. You can spend as little or as much time as you want on this step. I played with mine for about five minutes and then just left it with some gaps.
STEP SIX
Gently pinch the two main leaves, beginning at one end and slowly compress your way up towards the “eye” to form long tear drop shapes.
STEP SEVEN
Once you have created teardrops, you need to keep the inner coils from moving around. A normal coil wouldn’t do this, but these big guys will. The process is the same for both the large main leaves.
Pull the main “eye” to the bottom of the rounded part of the teardrop. Pinch the eye against the loop edges to hold it in place. Flip it over and apply glue liberally to the bottom part of each piece. Wipe off excess glue, but make sure it’s thick enough to coat the bottom.
dry fit and arrangement
Now that you have created all the individual pieces (minus the stem), it’s time to see how they fit together. The dry fit adds an extra step, but gives you the opportunity to make adjustments as necessary.
If notice during this step that one of the Labellum is too large, or you accidentally glued the wrong side of one of the Lateral Petals, since nothing is glued together or onto the background, you can change it.
Another reason for is to ensure white space around the edge of the piece (see red highlighted area for example). Never glue your pieces directly to the edge because it limits your options and doesn’t look professional. This also ensure that you can use a mat. Try for a minimum of ¼” of white space.
THE STEM
Why haven’t I given instructions for the stem? Because until you have done a dry fit, you won’t know how long to make it. I could tell you to cut a strip 3.5” long but that may not be what your particular flower requires.
Now that you have dry-fit your Lady’s Slipper, measure the distance from where the Labellum sides touch, straight down (not at an angle) until it meets the top of the large leaf. That is the length you will need.
You can glue several pieces of light or medium green together to make it look thick, or if you happen to have cardstock strips, you can use two glued together. You can also glue two standard weight strips about 1/8” apart (directly onto the background) to simulate a thick stem. It’s up to you.
FINISHING TOUCHES
Now that you are ready to glue your beautiful creation down onto your background paper, you can make some adjustments if you’d like. A few little touches that I did for my Lady’s Slipper were:
- Once the glue was dry on the large leaves, I gave them better shapes because they weren’t so difficult to handle.
- I overlapped the small main leaf on top of the large main leaf to give it more depth.
Once you are happy with all the shapes, glue it down as shown on the image at the beginning of this tutorial. You are now finished! Great job!
