Join AGA Adjunct Curator of Indigenous Art, MJ Belcourt Moses, for “Quill Traditions.” MJ discusses the art form and demonstrates one technique!
Porcupine quillwork is an art form that is unique to Indigenous Peoples and primarily found in the Great Plains. This distinctive practice has endured over the centuries. It’s an ancient art form that significantly predates the use of glass beads. According to some sources, quill working tools dating to the sixth century have been found on the plains. Quillwork began in a dream by a young woman who was taught how to use quills. Quills were used to adorn shirts, moccasins, bags and jewelry.
MJ is a traditional Métis artist, certified Native Cultural Art instructor and most recently served as Indigenous Art Consultant for Fort Edmonton Park and Indigenous Curator for the Edmonton Public Library. In 2019, MJ served as an Indigenous Artist in Residency with the City of Edmonton. She looks forward to sharing Indigenous stories at the AGA.
This special #AGAlive event is part of Field Trip: Art Across Canada, an online initiative to deliver arts experiences in partnership with leading Canadian arts organizations.
#AGAlive is presented with the support of the EPCOR Heart + Soul Fund.Join AGA Adjunct Curator of Indigenous Art, MJ Belcourt Moses, for “Quill Traditions.” MJ discusses the art form and demonstrates one technique!
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Key moments
View all
Housekeeping Notes
Housekeeping Notes
1:21
Housekeeping Notes
1:21
Tail Quills
Tail Quills
5:10
Tail Quills
5:10
Quill Earrings
Quill Earrings
6:31
Quill Earrings
6:31
Tools
Tools
7:27
Tools
7:27
Zigzag Stitch
Zigzag Stitch
10:17
Zigzag Stitch
10:17
Line Stitch
Line Stitch
10:53
Line Stitch
10:53
Beading Thread
Beading Thread
18:30
Beading Thread
18:30
What Size Needle Is Recommended
What Size Needle Is Recommended
25:20
What Size Needle Is Recommended
25:20
Use CTRL+F to find key words if it is a longer transcript.
0:03
all right we are live and we already have five guests which is amazing uh so hello everyone and welcome thank
0:10
you for joining us hi mj hi thank you for being here today um so my name’s
0:18
sophia i’ll be behind the scenes today um as our wonderful amazing and talented
0:23
guest mj uh takes us through her program called core tributions um this program is made
0:30
possible in part through heart and soul fund by epcor uh to learn more about their uh heart and soul fund
0:37
visit uh epcor dot com slash heart and soul fund um so i’m just gonna share a little bit
0:44
about mj um and then i’ll run into some housekeeping and most recently served as indigenous
0:50
art consultant for fort edmonton park an indigenous curator for the edmonton public library
0:56
in 2019 mj served as an indigenous artist in residency and always has about five million things
1:03
on the go um it’s uh it’s i i get to work with her in other places um other than this building
1:10
which we are both in so mj is in the borealis room at the art gallery and i am in one of the offices just so
1:17
that we can keep each other safe and go maskless um a few housekeeping
1:22
notes uh so if you are noticing things are getting a little bit fuzzy uh hit that reconnect button at
1:29
the button at the top of your screen and that’ll just uh refresh everything right into back into this room uh there’s also a
1:36
chat function so i feel free to ask any questions if i don’t know the answer and i think
1:41
it’s i would love to know the answer we might pop in and ask mj and if not uh we can follow up with you
1:48
afterwards we’ll download the chat and make sure we get uh get those questions answered um as well this is if you can’t join us
1:56
live today um don’t worry uh we will be uploading this to our youtube channel
2:01
so the art gallery of alberta has a youtube channel and all of our past live aga or aj lives are on there
2:08
um as well all of our upcoming ones uh including this one uh so make sure you do check that out
2:15
but that’s enough of me talking because it’s quite as you can see with all of the amazing items on the table
2:21
she’s got a lot to cover um so please mj take it away and i look i so look forward to learning episode traditions
2:29
awesome well thank you so much and thank you for that introduction um it is a busy time i’m i’m very
2:35
involved with all kinds of things but um it is a passion and i love it and it’s it’s a wonderful
2:41
time to to be alive um although we’re struggling a little bit
2:46
we do have to deal with covid and keeping ourselves safe so please do i
2:52
hope that um you can sort of follow along with what i’m doing and again if there’s questions
2:57
please feel free to ask me anything you’ve mentioned i am mixed heritage i am
3:02
cree mohawk and french that’s my metis mix uh my family is from laxai nan and the
3:09
michelle band so that’s um my roots i i wasn’t raised out there i was raised all over alberta
3:15
but um but this is home i was born here uh definitely my home and native land
3:21
uh you could say so um one of the the wonderful techniques that i was able
3:28
to learn is and please correct me for those kree speakers out there
3:34
to make sure that i have that right for the next time but the porcupine was uh an animal that
3:41
wasn’t fast moving so it was easy to capture they made a succulent meal and then all
3:47
the quills were used as adornment and decoration so um it’s it’s part of the rodent family
3:54
it’s uh it’s the second largest rodent actually um first would be the porcupine that’s
3:59
the largest and it habits uh woodlands uh mostly woodland area in canada
4:05
and it’s primarily a nocturnal animal you’ll find it climbing and resting in a
4:12
tree branch during the day or under and under a boro
4:19
and it’s uh i’m just so sorry i lost my spot here [Music]
4:26
um yeah and also sorry um the
4:33
porcupine quills were also there were some suggestions that the quills themselves were part of a
4:39
trade so it was um used as served as a medium of exchange uh during pre-contact and
4:48
and with indigenous trade and so those people who don’t have the porcupine in their neck of the
4:55
woods so to speak that they were able to trade for them the porcupine actually an
5:00
adult sized porcupine will average between 30 and 40 000 quilts but there’s um all kinds of
5:07
sizes all over the body um on the tail quills you’ll get these really heavy
5:13
ones i’m not sure where to go here for this there’s something i don’t know if you can see that but they’re
5:18
quite large those are quite heavy and those are towards the tail end of the the animal um whereas these ones are
5:25
quite fine and these are more um closer to the belly side belly
5:30
uh quills so and then they range from the belly to the back they get a
5:35
little thicker as they go around the body and the ones that i like to use are the
5:41
side quills sometimes the the um depending on what i’m doing actually too
5:46
but i do like the side curls mostly sometimes closer to the belly but when you get right into the center
5:52
of the animal there really isn’t uh any quills there’s it’s there’s hair and cools actually are
5:58
a type of hair it’s an extension it just becomes hard because they’re they grow with the barbs on the end that
6:04
is their protection they don’t uh shoot the quills like some people believe that’s an old wise tale
6:10
um but the they will swish their tail um in defense and they they kind of
6:16
stand up their quills like hackles i guess and that is their protection so anything
6:22
that touches them will get jabbed and poked and they do hurt and they’re not very nice anyone who’s had a
6:27
dog that’s chased them and and bit that your these quill earrings i made these are
6:33
more like a back quill they’re not as heavy as these ones but um though it was easier
6:39
quillwork still survived it almost died out you could in some ways it sorted for size and then
6:46
died vegetable dyes natural dyes roots were used bark was used but they always used a
6:53
mordant to secure them the color to make the color stay
6:58
and often that was an acidic type of a medium in fact some some peoples
7:06
would collect urine from children so so that they could use that to set the dye in the quills
7:15
but anything acidic vinegar works that’s what i’ve used before in with my classes
7:24
that i’ve been teaching so some of the tools that were used
7:30
a long time ago would have been sinew for sewing them down a bone a bone
7:36
flattener to flatten the quills a knife was used to cut the quills
7:43
i don’t have my knife with me but i do have these handy dandy little scissors i really like them they’re nice little
7:49
shears or snips they work really well and i have also another little pair but i do
7:56
also use an exacto blade and that’s also helpful in some with for some um some
8:03
[Music] instances where you need to cut the quilt from the hide
8:09
um it’s best to work on natural smoked hide um smoked hide is um
8:17
is a like a thick flannel when it’s done so you can sort of see the thickness in it um that
8:26
i’m not sure where that is exactly if you can see that but it’s quite thick so you can actually sew
8:31
kind of in between the the layer so that you can hide all your stitches and you don’t have
8:37
anything in the back so this one is i have my thread showing but there’s no
8:42
just because i had to put my my um needles in the back just to get them out
8:47
of the way but there’s no loose ends no loose threads because i was able to go into the hide and tie the
8:53
knot and hide that thread inside the hide itself so i’m using moose height here
9:01
and when i begin i always charred off my design i grafted out
9:07
and this is what i’ve come up with it’s my own design but it’s um kind of just reflective i think a little
9:13
bit of of my my cultural heritage and and so then i found this stuff you might want to try
9:20
and see if you can find this yourself and see if you like it some people don’t really care for it but i’m trying it out it’s not too bad
9:26
it’s a thin film where it it um it’s actually water soluble which is kind of
9:31
neat it works really great for beadwork as well so i’ve traced my design on it
9:36
and then gently sort of stores and it is a permanent pen it’s got a very fine tip i
9:44
can draw a line i don’t get run too thickly into the height because you don’t want them to blob onto the so i brought one of my
9:53
um quill pieces to show you and this is cool sewing and
10:00
you can see that without the reflection i love these lights by the way i have some color in my face today from
10:07
the lights that’s awesome but this is an example and kind of a
10:12
sampling of different styles of quill work and there is a zigzag stitch which is in
10:20
the center of the little buds there and i don’t know if that’s where you can
10:25
see it the best but um and that’s kind of the easier stitch to learn the zigzag stitch
10:32
is one of the first ones you would learn if you want to practice practice using ribbon that’s what i
10:37
get the fine ribbon that works really well or somebody told me that they tried it with um
10:42
with straws that they just cut the straws because it’s thin and flat and then they can fold it so you can try
10:49
that too if you’d like the other stitches that are here are the line stitch that’s these little blue
10:55
swirls here and then there’s another stitch called the zigzag or sawtooth stitch and that’s kind of fun as well so i was
11:01
going to work on the line stitch that i have here on my piece that i started
11:08
but because my quill has been sitting a little bit longer it dried out i have to moisten it and
11:14
you have to keep them moist um and so i have my little bowl of water
11:21
with my quills in it and um and so that they’ve been soaking for a
11:27
little while warm lukewarm water is good you don’t really want to have hot water because they’ll soften too fast
11:33
and then if the quill itself actually isn’t hollow um as some people
11:40
believe that it is it’s not hollow it has like this little foamy core to it and if you let it soak too
11:47
long you’ll squish all that core out uh that foamy core i’m not sure what it’s called
11:53
scientifically but it um if it does come out it um it won’t your quill won’t flatten
12:01
because it needs that um that foam to flatten and stick to itself so that
12:07
you can manipulate the quill and and bend it and fold it if like i said if you if you leave it in
12:14
the water too long it will squish out and and then it just has a hollow tube that just
12:19
wants to stay um kind of open and that doesn’t it’s um it doesn’t
12:27
work very well anyways so these are not too too bad but what might have to do
12:33
is excuse me here but i’m gonna have to put this in my mouth and a long time ago
12:40
elders and and those that did quill work did put the quilt in them their mouths
12:46
to soften it i don’t really recommend that if you’re going to be dying your quills different colors with writ clothing dye
12:55
i don’t think it’s really healthy for you to have that in your mouth plus you have to be careful that the
13:00
quill isn’t pointing the wrong direction so that you would not want to get that stuck in your mouth at all
13:07
and it is really awful if if that happens i actually did that one
13:12
time i was in a hurry and i i kind of coughed or something and i had to cool on the side of my mouth but it
13:18
kind of got stuck it was just awful it’s a terrible experience so please
13:23
don’t do that if you’re some older ones will if they’ve done cool work for a long
13:30
long time then they’re very efficient and they can manage that coil but i prefer
13:36
not to myself but they did actually would pull the quill out of their mouth and flatten it
13:41
between their teeth and that’s something that also is interesting and they say that saliva is better than soaking it in water
13:48
but um you can try but just be very cautious you don’t want to get that
13:53
stuck in your your mouth that’s it’s not pleasant believe me trust me so um so a few other things though
14:02
with um with the quills and and the stories behind the quill work
14:08
there’s a an ancient uh or sorry there’s well and it’s it’s an ancient art form
14:14
and um the blackfoot believed that it was the thunder spirit that gave the first
14:20
um porcupines to the answers as we taught them how to do quill work um i always find it really interesting
14:27
to to hear those stories or to learn about the origins of things and and how it was uh
14:34
given to the people among the siouxs who were really well known for their quill work um there’s a legend of a
14:41
young woman who was taught in her dream how to do porcupine pool work and how to work with
14:46
them and then when she woke up she turned around and talked this to two others
14:52
there’s also another sue story that talks about an old an old woman who who continuously
14:58
does quill work and she has her dog that lays beside her as she does her quilling and then when she falls asleep her dog
15:07
um chews up her or tears up her quill work and she has to start over and so this is a
15:13
continuous thing and it’s ongoing but they say that and the belief is that if she actually were to finish
15:18
her quill work that it would signify the end of the world so um so that i think is a an interesting
15:26
uh story uh a relief that as um maybe it’s prompting us to
15:33
keep keep this work going and not to stop and to and to not let it die out completely because we want to we
15:39
want to be able to keep this this incredible
15:45
art form alive so i’m going to actually close that because i don’t think i need that
15:51
anymore it’s distracting anyway so um but i’m gonna actually move this over so
15:58
that i can pull the stuff around here and you can see
16:04
my work a little bit clearer and closer i’ll move this here so that these are
16:10
out of the way i’m going to be working on the green one like i said i’m going to be doing the um
16:18
the lined work here so and as i mentioned i’m not going to be using sinew i have
16:24
in the past used a little bit but it’s a little tricky to to make a sinew thread um i have my
16:31
late elder elsie quintel from square lake up class lacla bish actually
16:37
taught me how once these are dry you take little strips you rub it in your mouth the the sinew and then you roll it uh on
16:45
your head on your leg or whatever is comfortable to to make a twist and to create the
16:52
sinew a long time ago they would use alls i don’t have a bone all but i have a
16:57
little metal all that has a little piece of antler on the on the end of it and these would go into the hide it
17:03
would poke a hole into the hide and then the sinew um you could twist
17:09
this in your two and make a a point at the at the end like at
17:14
the tip of it and let it dry and then it becomes firm and solid again and then once you poke the hole in the
17:21
hide then you would thread the sinew in without a needle you don’t need a needle because it’s
17:26
it’s that stiff and very very strong sinew is incredibly strong um the elder elsie
17:34
late elder elsie quintel actually still um she beaded regularly and she still
17:40
used sinew to do the outside edge of her of her designs always with sinew because
17:48
it’s just really strong and and you don’t have to worry about it rubbing and
17:53
the thread breaking at all so but if you know any hunters you can get the
17:59
tendons from the backbone and you want to try it you can there’s a casing on the outside
18:05
i actually have a piece here so you can peel that off you can do it while it’s wet or you can wait till it’s dry and
18:12
you can give your give it a try if you want to um or call me if you need me to if you’re
18:17
trying it out to see how it works that that work that’s okay to uh or message me so um
18:25
but so some of the things that i have practiced with and used i have used beading thread and this is
18:31
just a nylon beading thread you have to wax it up really really well if you’re going to
18:37
use the the nylon thread because it is strong um but
18:44
without the the wax on it it’s too slippery um it doesn’t hold the
18:49
stitch in place and that’s what you want it to do it kind of mimics sinew in a sense because of the wax on it and
18:56
and it is fairly strong um i i like it in some ways it does
19:03
it does stitch pretty good but it can actually tear your your quill so you have to sort of
19:10
be careful with it too because if you pull too tight it actually can break your quill so you have to just be careful
19:17
i also started using um like a cotton thread this is a nice heavy cotton
19:22
thread but again i waxed it up really really well when i’m going to use it and
19:29
i can just show you quickly here i think with one of these
19:39
so when i do my waxing i take i take um i like to have a comfortable amount of thread
19:45
about a wingspan that’s what i call it a wingspan of thread that’s that’s plenty you can go a little
19:50
bit more but if you have too much then it’s it makes it kind of awkward because you’re pulling and pulling all the
19:56
thread and it it’ll start to fray on you and it’ll it’ll get all bunched up and you it’s better just to take just enough
20:02
that’s comfortable to use at one time this is beeswax i bought this
20:08
a chunk of beeswax a brick of it from the farmer’s market and i melted it down and i just put it in ice cube trays
20:14
and made myself some beeswax so that i can carry it around and i give
20:20
them to to friends who are learning cool work and or beadwork but you have to wax it up
20:27
pretty good i like to rub it through at least three or four times so that it gets a good coating on there
20:34
and that’s what you want it to do so just pull it through the wax and the wax
20:42
takes the tangle out of the thread it preserves the thread because it coats it it makes the stitch stay in place
20:49
it’s really actually um something really valuable and i always recommend it don’t
20:54
don’t forget your wax always wax your thread it’s really important and then when i thread my needle i
21:01
always pinch it between my fingers and i place the uh the the needle onto
21:07
the the thread it’s a little easier it always seems to work out
21:13
because you’re squeezing it flat and you’re just opening it enough to go through the eye of the needle and
21:19
it seems to work pretty good usually there you go so it’s it does
21:26
seem to work a little bit better than trying to poke the thread through you know because that’s a flexible you
21:31
know it’s it’s wiggly and it’s harder to um to put into the eye of the needle so that’s
21:38
what i found and uh give it a try see if that works for you
21:43
there’s my i’m gonna to just do this single thread this is a fairly heavy heavy thread so i’m not gonna double
21:50
this um if you feel that you need to i want to you can double it with if you have a thinner thread but i wouldn’t
21:55
recommend it you would you don’t have to uh single thread seems to work good with the nylon and with this cotton
22:01
thread that i’m trying out and i i do like it i’m going to put this one over here because i already have that one started here
22:09
and so i actually put on this one just so that it um
22:16
to kind of um get the process going here i have a knot and a tail end at the back
22:23
side of the of my leather and my hide and i like to leave a long tail end with
22:29
one little knot it doesn’t have to be double knotted because you’re going to go back into the the leather right close the knot and
22:34
pull the knot inside and hide your knot and then you can actually go back and forth with the
22:40
with your needle to hide that thread and it actually secures it
22:45
so that’s why i’ve left the long tail end at the back and that’s what i’m going to do so i’m going to have to put this in my mouth
22:51
for just a minute here so i’m sorry about that um i should have softened it earlier
22:57
[Music] hopefully this won’t take too long to soften it
23:03
and you can see what i’m doing i just got the quill in my mouth i normally don’t do this because it is like i said it’s
23:09
got it’s written clothing dye um i don’t use the natural dyes because it’s a big process to go and collect and
23:16
harvest all your natural ingredients um to do the dyeing process
23:22
so i find it easier to just use writ clothing dye and it does have nice brilliant colors
23:28
nice and vibrant colors that i like um i have been trying to
23:33
source out somebody told me that there was some online you can find natural dyes that
23:39
somebody actually is creating so um give them a try i think um i haven’t myself yet but i i do
23:47
i do want to but i think it would uh be a nice um a nice change to the the
23:54
colors of the of the quills when they’re finished i’m gonna just try and soften this a little bit more
24:02
and um if there’s any questions at this point please let me ask those
24:09
questions while i’m i’m trying to soften this this uh in my mouth
24:18
it’d be nice to know if there’s other quill workers out there uh working on on quills
24:25
and um where i usually harvest my quills is is roadkill i usually have a lot of
24:30
friends that will call me after they they pass a porcupine on the road and they always call me and
24:37
i love that they think of me when it comes to road kills so um but i’ll get a call you know it
24:44
you know once a year at least that you know somebody’s found a a porcupine on the side of the road and they tell me about it and
24:51
where to go and how to find it so um [Music] yeah so that’s that’s where i find my
24:56
calls you can um actually take quills off of uh live animals with a blanket um which which
25:04
works but you’re not gonna be there’s no selection then because you’re just gonna get me more or less the back quills uh maybe
25:11
the tail coils as well hi i’m jay we do have one question
25:18
we have a question from elaine uh they write what size needle is recommended
25:23
well i use a sharp um these ones uh these are a number 10. they’re
25:30
they’re not too bad the eye is a little bit small so you might want to find a sharp that has a larger eye just so that
25:36
it’s easier to thread these aren’t too bad but um they’re good with the nylon thread but not so good with the
25:42
the cotton thread that i’m using so just a regular sharp um size 10 works with a nice eye
25:49
those are good i like those ones they seem to work pretty good good question because i forgot that one
25:57
it’s starting to soften
26:03
it’s getting there okay and see if that works so i’m i’m not sure which camera to use
26:09
so that i can show you my the stitch that i’m going to be doing so this
26:14
is an interesting stitch that you it’s kind of a back stitch but you have to wrap around the quill
26:21
so for this line stitch what you’re doing is you’re going around the quill sort of
26:28
once and then kind of again just sort of halfway so it looks like i don’t know if you can
26:34
see that it’s kind of tiny and then you’re going to take a stitch
26:40
oops see that’s what happens it comes off
26:48
and the stitches just like it’s kind of a
26:57
back stitch yeah this is just a little awkward sorry
27:03
about that and i just want to i’ll get one going here and then and then hopefully i can
27:08
i don’t know which camera to use to get close
27:14
and then what happens is once because you’re pulling it it has this little twist in it in a
27:20
sense it pulls the coil down and sort of ties the hides the thread it might be hard to see
27:27
because it is pretty tiny but i’ll go i’ll do a few more
27:32
so oh i wanted to show you my a few books i i love to find books on on
27:39
um on co-work i couldn’t bring all of my my library
27:44
here because it would have been pretty heavy so i i only brought a couple but i
27:50
really do recommend i’ll show you them
27:56
i recommend this one i think they sell this one at halford hyde and it is pretty good because it’s a
28:01
cooler companion it’s called and it’s really good with the illustrations
28:06
so i’ll actually just show you the one that i’m working on here see if that helps maybe it’ll it’ll help a little bit but so this is a
28:13
single thread line technique and it gives a really great illustration of how to do it so it’s
28:19
pretty clear in the instructions and that’s what’s really nice about this book so when i was
28:24
working at the college we we were able to get books for everybody to use
28:30
and this is the one that that we use and it’s um eagles
28:37
eagles view publishing if that helps at all but i do believe they sell them at um
28:42
halford hyde the other one that i really like because it kind of gives a nice brief overview
28:49
of the history of the cool work and this is this is from the glenbaum museum and it is uh cool works of the plane so
28:55
it’s a really nice book there’s all kinds of different cool work the one that i really wanted to show you
29:02
is the quill plating it’s called and it’s usually done on on
29:08
pipe stems this is a close-up shot here of it it’s just beautiful so it wasn’t sewn
29:14
down onto the the pipe stem but it actually was wrapped around it it was it’s kind of like a braiding
29:20
almost uh to do this one so camera camera angle
29:26
this is really different anyway so yeah this is this is really great just so you can see those close-up shots and
29:32
it’s it’s really awesome that way um there’s so many different styles of cool work um
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there’s the sewn the weaving the wrapping and plating those are the four main um
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types of of cool work and so this one here is
29:49
this is a beautiful bag this is uh to cover them i believe it’s um yeah cradle board
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cover is what it is but it’s quite lovely this is all a band stitch this is a tricky one this is a
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harder stitch to learn um but it’s it is just amazing when you when you actually complete it on the
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bottom of this bag here this is called wrapping so it’s wrapping on rawhide you can also
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wrap um leather like leather thongs that’s this one here so there’s one that’s all wrapped this
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is also wrapped here with just a quills all along on top of it as well
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so um before i said again where there’s cool plating wrapping sewing and weaving and
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so this is just sewing this is a line stitch as i said and maybe
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i don’t know if i could if it’s possible but um i and maybe there’s a screenshot
30:47
we can take of this afterwards and put it on so that you can see that the illustration but i mean the books
30:55
aren’t too expensive you could always go to like i said go pick one up at harford height if you’re in the city
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um and it is great for the illustrations so but perhaps i can um
31:08
i can get i can get um sophia to help me and we can maybe print this or post it also with when
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we’re complete for today and then you can have that with yourself or take that with you as well anyways so
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let’s get back to it and it’s probably dried a little bit so i’m gonna have to do this again sorry um
31:32
and that’s the tricky part about doing quills you have to be steady with it because you have to keep them moist enough so that um it’s
31:39
not gonna work too much um to keep them flexible is what you want
31:46
because they do soften up enough so that you can flatten them with the line stitch i don’t usually i
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do cut off the tip though but i don’t flatten them because you want to keep that little bit of um
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keep the um a little bump in it because it oops there we go it’ll kind of raises
32:11
that stitch as you’re going so it has a little bit of a hump to it i guess you could see okay
32:20
so again you’re just going to go around the quill
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it’s kind of like once in a half around so it’s not completely
32:33
and and then you just make a little tiny stitch beside it
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and in front of this stitch so halfway past the other stitch i hope that makes
32:54
sense and that happens sometimes where it kind
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of gets stuck but you can pull it forward and you can see it as it tucks itself in it
33:06
might be really hard to see from where you are because it’s really really quite tiny here but you’ll know
33:12
you know what i mean when i when i’m when you if you try it i give it a try
33:18
uh like i said i’m available if somebody is trying it out and and they want to um to give it a try
33:25
and they’re stuck on something then yeah please feel free to message me and maybe we can put that
33:32
at the end of the video as well so that you can also contact me if you’re if
33:38
you’re stuck if you’re giving it a try and it’s it’s tricky because there’s a lot to it um
33:46
i seem like i’m going too many here there we go okay
33:54
yeah it’s um now i have to splice in so these ones will be better because this one’s a little stiff and i’m not really
33:59
happy i’m gonna have to actually take it out and redo it but that’s okay i’ll do it at home so i won’t uh i won’t do that here with
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you but when you’re going to stitch splice another one in and you just go along with your
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stitching so when you cut your quilt when you take
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your quill after it’s softened have a piece of paper towel and
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jab it into the into the into the paper towel you can use an x-acto blade or i just
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use my little snips here and i just cut it off and leave the the barbed end into the paper towel that way it’s
34:37
not going to fly off and fall on the floor and get stuck in somebody’s foot or something like that because that you wouldn’t want that to happen because
34:44
that would be pretty painful to get that little barbed end in your in your skin so now
34:52
with this one that i’m ready to use i usually use i usually put it in with the tail end in
34:58
the root side of it and just kind of put it in alongside i’m going to pull it
35:03
tight tightly down excuse me excuse me there’s my water sorry
35:11
just need a little ass sorry about that a little shot
35:22
okay so getting back to it here
35:27
so i just spliced in a quill and i’m going to go around it again and do the stitch one more time
35:35
and i did a few forward stitches to try to sort to help that quill along
35:40
but it didn’t work so like i said i’m going to have to take it apart when i get home but that’s okay
35:47
this is a backstitch and then you have to be careful that it’s not too twisted up and
35:55
and then you’ll pull it in and that little tail end will stick out i’ll do a few more stitches and then
36:01
i’ll tell you i’ll show you how you trim them off okay because you have to do that so kind
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of once and a half go around it’s a little tiny back stitch
36:17
and then
36:23
and you just have to be careful that your your your stitches don’t get too um there we go
36:32
too tangled you just have to wash it that’s all
36:37
okay one more time one more stitch then i’ll show you how to trim those those quills okay uh mj we just have a
36:45
question from the audience as well um of the four techniques which is the most
36:51
difficult to learn um
36:57
it kind of depends uh i’d say that the most difficult probably
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is weaving weaving is either on a loom or just on
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on on the garment itself if you’re going or the or whatever
37:14
you’re making um because you’re using multiple quills and and so it’s a little trickier if
37:20
you’re doing a looming the loomed quill work is tricky because
37:25
you have to have your quilts go through all the the warp threads the weft threads go across so
37:34
the warp threads are along um that hold the better sort of the stabilizer of the quills
37:40
and you have to put um so if you have four or five quills however many wide
37:48
you’re having then you you put your stitch across the quills have to bend over top of that stitch
37:53
then you you tighten it up really really tight then you um put another little
37:59
stitch across then the coils come up and then they go down back and forth like that but then you have to splice in and that’s what’s the
38:05
tricky part is splicing in because they’re only so so long that’s probably the the hardest
38:11
one to learn um cool wrapping is probably the easiest
38:16
one to learn because you’re just manipulating the quill you’re flattening it and you’re wrapping it around
38:22
and it’s just a little tiny way that you twist it around the other quill so that you can keep
38:27
wrapping and so that one’s a fairly easy one to learn and then and then i guess the the sewing
38:34
the plating isn’t too difficult uh you do that on a little loom as well just using two threads so
38:40
that’s probably easier too cool wrapping and plating are fairly easy and then like the quilt sewing because
38:46
there’s different styles of sewing um they’re a little tricky because you have to learn
38:54
all those multiple stitches as i had on my sampler and but but
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like i said again it’s it is really therapeutic it really focuses you it keeps you calm because you have to be
39:06
really precise with with each stitch okay let me just finish this one sorry about that and see
39:12
i can get this here and and uh show you how to trim the
39:20
the loose ones okay there we go okay so that’s way better that’s a lot
39:26
better okay i’ll do one more
39:34
and i don’t mind this thread it does seem to
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want to tangle a little bit so i might go with a shorter a shorter
39:45
amount of thread to work with i it’s not too bad and see it’s come off my quill
39:53
i can’t submit that okay got it
39:59
okay nope not quite
40:04
there we go okay not too bad those are better than the
40:11
last one but that my cool was dry so it wasn’t working quite right so now if you’re once you’re finished
40:17
you want to take your exact weight this is when you actually need a really nice little exacto blade and what you do is is you’re going to
40:26
take the end of that quill the little root end or the little pieces that are
40:32
stuck out and you grab it and you pull it up against you don’t don’t cut into the hide or cut
40:37
into the coil you just pull the coil off into the into the um
40:43
into the blade i hope that makes sense so there’s another one here so you grab it and you pull it up to the
40:51
against the blade and that’s how you get rid of all those little loose ends there’s another one here it’s probably
40:57
going to leave them and go back to them so that’s all you do
41:03
and that’s pretty much it for the line stitch and that’s um that one i like the line
41:09
stitch i like how it um you can go around the edges of something i wanted to show you there is another photograph in
41:17
here that does show that and i really like it
41:24
if i can find it i thought it
41:29
oh here’s the quill the cool um this is what i mean about it’s black and white but you can see the quill loomed work
41:36
so each of these little folds here that’s a quill that’s been folded
41:41
and you can see it on on the loom itself this is a really good illustrated book it has some nice photos
41:47
and close-ups i like that here so i i recommend it if you can find something that has really great pictures
41:53
it gives you some better idea but there was another one here i wanted to show you that was also a close-up
42:00
of the um the line stitch with the zigzagger oh there it is
42:06
yeah oh it didn’t show that oh i thought it was anyways this is a zigzag in a floral design a lot of the quills that are found um
42:14
the the real old ones um a lot of geometrical designs but um then they they with more time
42:22
that came along this is a tea cozy oops there’s my fingers this is a tea cozy
42:27
right here um and so it’s um it doesn’t say who
42:32
made it uh but there was you know as time on it oh it says a cree cream 18.
42:38
and so you can see a lot of criminal designs in this in this illustration here but beautiful
42:46
beautiful works i thought i had another one here i wanted to show you that line stitch must have been in my other book
42:52
because i have a few of them and uh yeah no not in here i thought it
42:58
was yeah but um yeah
43:04
i think we’re we’re probably getting close to that time so if there’s any questions or any other
43:12
questions please please feel free what time is it now it’s we still got about 10 minutes that’s not
43:18
too bad so um yeah i can probably finish this one but i think i’m going to take it apart
43:23
anyways because and that’s the thing too is like you get a little bit fussy because you want it to be just right and so you want all the
43:30
stitches to be all the same and so i i tend to be a little fussy i’m going to have to backtrack this one here
43:35
and the the last one and uh so that i can do this design and one day i will complete this and
43:43
it’ll be a bag so that’s uh that’s the idea with this one here but they were i mean pull work was used to embellish
43:51
all kinds of things clothing of course moccasins bags of all kinds so it just
43:59
depends on what you wanted to put on but i really do highly recommend using smoked hide if you can get some
44:07
if you can make it that’s even better i forgot to show you my leather thimble
44:12
this one i do like it’s really nice actually i bought this not too too long ago but it’s um you could probably make one too
44:19
but it was handy i went and grabbed it because it’s just a nice little leather thimble and it’s perfect for doing cool work because
44:24
you’re not going through really heavy or surf using you’re usually passing the needle through the surface of the hide
44:29
so you don’t need a heavy duty one i have another one that’s a leather
44:34
thimble that has a piece of metal here so if i’m going through magazines there’s a couple layers or three layers of hide you you
44:41
want something that you can press pretty good down on and you don’t have to worry about it going
44:47
through the this and jabbing your yourself with the needle so i recommend this too it’s awesome um
44:54
mj we do a question um how long should the quills soak for um you know these are nice and spongy
45:02
now i would probably if i was going to sit here for too long i would probably take them out and i keep them in a bunch because it
45:08
keeps the moist they’re the moist and it keeps them soft for a little bit so you just kind of have to play with it
45:14
you can feel them they kind of feel squishy but not like overly squishy that makes
45:21
sense i’ll actually show you one here this one actually is got some damage to it so it’s soaked up
45:27
on the inside and i’ll show you what i mean when i flatten the quill
45:32
for this stitch that i was doing here for the demo it’s um i don’t have to flatten it but i will
45:38
show you when i flatten the quills what that looks like so this one here
45:44
like i said it’s got some damage so it’s soaked up some water and it’s might not it might even
45:49
break when i when i flatten it so again you always stick it into a paper towel or kleenex or something
45:56
cut that barbed end off and so now i’m going to flatten it i usually flatten it from the
46:01
root end of the the quill to the tip and i have a bone flattener if you don’t have a bone flattener that’s okay you
46:08
can use a spoon or you can use a little i actually got those little um
46:14
chopsticks of some sort from the dollar store at one point and i used that for a little while it’s just a little piece of
46:20
wooden it was flat um and it worked really good actually so but um
46:27
yeah it’s um i’ll just put it over here so you can see it so i don’t know if it’ll come out or not
46:34
but oh yes there’s a little bit of squishy white stuff coming out that’s because it was it’s a damaged quill and i can see that
46:40
it’s not too good so actually it’s not bad it’s holding pretty good
46:45
but that’s all you do um yeah some of the stuffing came out i don’t know what i call that i should
46:50
find out what that the technical term is for the inside of the quill but it is
46:57
like a little foaminess to it so so these aren’t too bad this is pretty good i can show you again
47:05
so if you watch you can just use an exacto blade too and again just lay it on the quill and pull up on the quill so
47:10
you’re not cutting down into anything and the coil barbed end stays up in the in the paper
47:15
towel i’ll just show you quickly here again
47:20
so just flatten the coil out it’s not too bad
47:26
and that’s kind of it i wish i had i don’t i should have
47:32
brought me a little piece of rawhide to show you wrapping uh quickly but um
47:39
but if you can imagine um the quill goes around the hide i mean around the strip
47:45
of rawhide in the back and then when it comes you keep wrapping it around i don’t have
47:52
anything sorry i wasn’t thinking about that
47:57
and then it would actually fold it back down on itself and then this one hooks into it
48:05
on the back side and then it keeps folding you keep folding it around and it’s keeps flattening so
48:15
i don’t think you can see anything like that because it’s kind of mangled looking but that’s the idea of it
48:22
um you kind of see it but uh yeah that’s that’s the cool
48:28
wrapping part so i think that’s about it i think that’s uh um
48:34
it for today i covered most everything um just wanted to make sure that you’ve
48:39
seen a little bit of that cool work and again i just there’s so many different stitches to do so uh it’s
48:45
it’s just good to practice it it just if you want to try they do i think they do sell these that you can
48:50
get little tiny containers of quills if you don’t want to work with a porcupine because it’s it’s quite a
48:56
process you have to what i do is i skin the porcupine out and i tack it to a big board
49:02
and i just kind of let it dry because i don’t always have time to pluck it right away if you can if you can pluck your quills
49:07
off the porcupine right away it’s it’s better but if not i tack it to a board and i let it
49:13
dry and then sometimes i will just shake the board and the cools will come out because they’re dry enough or you just have to
49:20
take your pliers there’s long guard hairs uh that you want to remove and those are
49:25
also used for roaches uh the headdresses they’re those wonderful um headdress roach headdresses
49:34
um but other than that to remove all the those there’s all really fine soft down
49:41
hair amongst the quills as well so you have to sort of work around that you can take the
49:46
clothes out if you’re going to use the pliers and i recommend using a pliers pull in the direction of the hair or the
49:51
quill you don’t want to pull back on it because it cracks and it’ll break it and then you have a damaged quill and then it’s not easy to use so
49:58
but give it a try and like i said um if you’re curious and i probably am planning hopefully to do a
50:05
cool workshop in the spring so uh keep your ears open for that i’ll probably post it on facebook um
50:12
just under my name it’s mj bellcore so um if you want to friend me then i’ll
50:17
post and then if you’re interested at that time come and take my class and then we’ll get a little bit more dirty and
50:24
and have a little more fun and and try out a few more stitches so um yeah so just
50:29
just to let you know mj that was amazing oh my gosh i feel like i learned so much
50:38
from the audience thank you so much mj grateful for the teachings you share truly we are so grateful thank you for
50:44
sharing this with us today um i feel yeah i feel like we can go into the next
50:49
really busy week um i know it’s a crazy time for for especially with yesterday’s news but
50:55
it was so nice to to take a break for a little bit and be able to learn something um that is rooted with such tradition
51:03
um so thank you mj um our gallery of alberta make sure you check out our aj lives
51:09
coming up in the next month um and then thank you to the heart and soul fund from epcor
51:14
hope you have a really great rest of your day everyone and um stay tuned for more on our social media
51:21
thank you mj bye everyone
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