ˈkwɪlɪŋ noun (Lifestyle
and Leisure)
The art or
craft of
paper filigree, in
which elaborate pictures and designs are
built up
from curled strips of paper.
Etymology: Formed by adding the
action suffix -ing to the
verb quill 'to
form (ribbon, etc.)
into small cylindrical plaits or curls'. The
word quilling
has been in
use since the eighteenth
century in the
sense 'a
ribbon, strip of
lace or
other material gathered into small cylindrical folds'.
History and
Usage: Quilling is a
traditional craft, practised as paper filigree in the UK and as quill
work in parts of the US
for decades or even centuries. Like a
number of other traditional crafts,
though, it
began to be promoted
outside the small
community in which it
was traditionally practised
during the seventies and benefited from the
revival of
interest in crafts which
took place during the
late seventies and eighties. In
this revived use, the
name given to the craft
throughout the English-speaking
world was quilling, and the word
soon passed from
technical terminology into
more widespread usage. A
practitioner of quilling is a quiller. Quillers
have used
all varieties of paper...In
modern quilling, the
choice of colors is
broad. Betty
Christy & Doris Tracy Quilling: Paper Art for
Everyone (1974),
pp. 34 and 37
