Quillwork Gallery
Quillwork, like porcupine quill embroidery, is an ancient craft which is unique to North America. Porcupine quill embroidery as decorative textile embellishment pre-dates glass bead use. While living in the Northwoods of Wisconsin, I discovered a fascinating-sounding workshop in the coursebook of the local community college and decided to sign up.
In class, we learned, among many tricks of the trade, how to gather porcupine quills. This, essentially, involves dodging the Department of Natural Resources and plucking road-killed porkies (don't laugh so readily, porcupines who've given up the ghost are hot property for artisans.) The quills on the shoulders and the neck work the best for quillwork. Although I just passed a sad little creature by the side of the road the other day, I have yet to actually get up enough nerve to pluck one. Maybe I'm just too much of a city slicker.
Star Design
This is the project I made while in the class. I decided that my best bet was to go with a simple, geometric star design for my first project, instead of something more lifelike. I enjoyed working with shading using the various colors of the quills. I eventually sewed this design onto a birch bark box.
Avian Design
I made this porcupine quill project next. It was supposed to be a whooping crane by turned out to be an eagle-like creature. My young cousin refers to it as a "Schweeps", so called for a pterodactyl-sized bird-thing he saw hopping around the woods one day. Some scientists say it might have been a heron but I, myself, like to think that it was perhaps a Thunderbird. Again, I made this porcupine quill embroidery project into a birchbark box. Note the beaded accents I added to the talons of the bird.
Materials used: Porcupine quills, raffia, birchbark, glass seed beads.
