NWT Arts

One of Lucy’s favorite types of traditional art to create was porcupine quillwork. She had to collect the quills by plucking them, then wash them all and dye each batch a different color. Once they were coloured, she had to soak them for a long time to keep them from breaking when she flattened them out and bent them, and then she could use them for sewing. It took a lot of patience.

Most of Lucy’s designs were ones that she drew up herself, and then followed along to make them with the quills. She did a lot of different patterns, but sometimes she got people who asked for certain things. She did animals like polar bears, fox, and ptarmigan, but those were mostly special requests. She did most of her quillwork on the loom.

Lucy really enjoyed sewing. After her kids all grew up, she didn’t have much to do, so she started doing more arts and crafts. She made slippers, beadwork, moose hair tufting, most of the traditional arts, but quillwork was the one she did most. It took a lot of time and patience to learn the techniques, especially for working with porcupine quills, but her mother and sister were good teachers. She also passed on some of the skills to another sister and her daughter. She thought arts were a good thing to pass down, and she enjoyed doing it.