Jane Jenkins: How Quilling Guild founder has spent four decades keeping traditional craft alive

Jane’s home in Skidby, East Yorkshire is now filled to the brim with creations, everything from figurines to decorative artworks, hand games and jewellery. A display cabinet in the lounge proudly showcases some of the best (many of which are made in her garden cabin) – and the loft is packed with more. There’s thousands in total. "We had to have a loft conversion in order to house all this stuff that I was making,” she chuckles. “I’m still producing pieces because I’m still finding new things to do.”

Many of her pieces have been used as visual aids for teaching. Almost as soon as Jane mastered the art herself – and the basics are “very simple” she maintains – the now 78-year-old wanted to share it with others. That included husband Paul and her two daughters, now in their 40s, who started quilling by the age of five and still take every opportunity they can to demonstrate the craft.

“One of the things I love about quilling is that I’m amazed what paper strips can do,” Jane says. “You can develop them in so many ways, it’s surprising. People often look at quillings and say it’s lovely, what is it (made from)? When I say it’s made of paper strips, often they can hardly believe it.”

By the end of 1983, Jane and Paul had founded The Quilling Guild, a charity that still exists today to bring together quillers and encourage, support, preserve and publicise the art. From then on, much of Jane’s life has revolved around quilling, creating designs and experimenting with new techniques. She does so for her own pleasure – both from crafting and admiring the work – but also to inspire her students and pass on knowledge to other quillers.

Quilling, Jane says, was nearly a lost art when she first came to it. She started approaching local craft and activity groups to give talks and demonstrations, introducing as many people as she could to quilling techniques. She never went back to her job as a primary school teacher, and between 1984 and 2007, ran adult education classes, teaching quilling courses at colleges and centres around East Yorkshire. In 2003, she authored a quilling book, setting out the various techniques.

For around 25 years, Jane and Paul also ran the JJ Quilling Design business, before retiring in 2010. They sold quilling strips, designs and kits (with other materials such as glue, scissors and tweezers) by mail order and at craft fairs, where they’d also sell quilled greetings cards. “When I was doing craft fairs all the stalls were full of handmade things and it was lovely to meet up with other crafty people,” Jane remembers fondly. “I used to pick up a lot of stuff from people doing other crafts and see if I could apply them to quilling - and often I could.”

Today, Jane still hosts classes and workshops of her own, predominantly for friends and family, and fellow members of The Quilling Guild. She rarely parts with her own creations – “I just think I’ve put my heart and soul into this, so I’m going to keep it”. “Probably the thing I like to do the most is to experiment and find new things to do with quilling,” she says. “But next I like to teach it. I like to be able to inspire my students.”

The popularity of quilling has fluctuated over time, the Quilling Guild says, and the decorative art has been used in a range of designs from coats-of-arms to tea-caddies and cabinets. Work of high quality was achieved by French and Italian nuns in the 16th and 17th centuries; genteel ladies in the Stuart periods and ladies of leisure in the Georgian and Regency periods. It is currently enjoying a modern revival.

“The basics are very easy to do,” Jane says. “My other craft is calligraphy and you need to practice for an awful long time in order to get proficient. Almost anybody can quill from the beginning. Another thing I love about quilling is that it’s very sociable. You can do it whilst watching television or having a conversation with somebody.”

There were many reasons why she was first drawn in after reading that library book spotted by Paul. “The raw materials are there to hand. You don’t have to buy a spinning wheel or mason’s mallet. Paper and glue, that’s it,” she says. “I also think there’s something therapeutic in rolling those little strips.

"I love to see the finished product. There’s something intriguing about instead of our natural world or whatever it is being depicted in brush strokes, it’s paper on its edge, often in coils and loops. It’s fascinating to see how it finally looks.”

Jane also takes pride and enjoyment in helping to keep alive a heritage craft. “I think a lot of these finer crafts in particular, that were done by genteel ladies, get a bit lost,” she says. “It’s really important they’re kept on, for their own sake but also for the sake of the people doing them.

"It’s good for the soul to be creative and you can be creative with the simplest of materials that are not going to cost the earth and take something dead simple like paper strips and glue, and turn it into something pleasing and beautiful. That’s really good for your self picture and we really need to carry on doing it.”