Quilling Letters 102 - Part 1

I started quilling a typography project around November 2016, starting with the letter "f".

The next letter, "o", is the one I find most challenging in the alphabet. There are no corners to diminish a join's seam. 

I kiss the glue on the end, then match it up with the opposite end. Since it has no flat sides to align against the surface of my desk, I have my tweezers squeeze the flat sides.

Not too shabby of a join. Then comes the smoothening out so the arc of the circle or oval.

Wondering how I traced the outline of the letters on the surface of my paper? I used the scoring tool of my Cricut Explore Air, and ask it to trace the outline of the letters. 

If you don't have an electric cutter, simply lay a printed letter on top of your surface, and use a dried up pen to trace the letter on top. I suggest using removable tape so it stays put until you're done.

There's something enticing about knowing where a letter is going to be. It's like that feeling I get when I KNOW a puzzle piece is going to fit.

In a case like this letter "l", I don't tackle it all at once because I'd end up smearing glue everywhere due to so many corners. I work it a section at a time, slipping a glue smeared strip below, dabbing, then laying that segment down = easy, peasy control.

Oh boy, another "o". I like using the metal shaft of my crochet hook for smoothening out letters like this.

Another way to align the edges is to butt against a straight edge.

I find plastic credit cards to be so helpful with my quilling butting! In this case it's helping me align the top edges of the letter "w".

Now that the top edges are nicely secured, it frees me up to then glue the rest easily.

Almost there. If you're wondering why I skipped the gluing of the previous letter "o", it's because then I'd have complete freedom when dealing with such a long strip needed for "w". Without the "o" in the way, the plastic card and my fingers can get into and all around "w". It's good to look ahead when quilling words.

I'm dismayed over the poor quality of this image, but sometimes when I get caught up in the "doing", I'm ignoring the world around me, not wanting to pause until morning, when the sun can actually let me take a proper picture.

Anyway, I hope these tiny details help you in your quilling of letters! This is the first of three words - can anyone guess what it's going to say?