The Heritage Craft Makers: Quiller Jane Jenkins

Quiller Jane Jenkins has spent more than 40 years dedicated to keeping the traditional craft alive.

Transcript

00:00I'm Jane Jenkins, I'm a quiller. I've been quilling since 1983, when my husband brought

00:07me a book home from the library, and that started all those years of quilling. It seems

00:16like a strange thing to want to do, to riddle with paper strips, but it's amazing what can

00:23be achieved with paper strips, and that's one of the appeals as far as I'm concerned.

00:28There are loads of techniques, we're still discovering new ones. I think also the appeal

00:34was that I'm a natural fiddler. If I've got a ticket in my hand, I'll roll it around and

00:40bend it, or the corner of a magazine. I've always done that, so it's a sort of natural

00:46thing. There's also some sort of therapeutic thing to it, a bit like worry beads, so it

00:54just is relaxing. It's also a heritage craft, it's a very old craft. At one point we nearly

01:04lost it, so it's lovely that we're continuing with something that's ancient and keeping

01:10it going. I'm making things similar to what our quilling ancestors did, but I'm also doing

01:18brand new, modern things, pushing the boundaries as much as I can. The basic ingredients are

01:28so very simple, there's just paper strips and glue and a background, and really that's

01:34all I need to produce things. So I mainly spend my time with a lap board on my knee

01:46in front of the TV. Also rolling strips or looping or curling or bending, whatever it

01:55is, whichever technique it is that I'm doing at the time. The other thing that I love to

02:00do is teach it, so I've got lots of students who want to come and learn this craft. Not

02:09as many students as I'd like. I'm always open for teaching more people, particularly

02:17young people, because I think it's extremely important that we carry on with this fabulous

02:23craft that gives such a lot of pleasure to so many people.