Description
Porcupine quill pickers
Porcupine quill pickers in different sizes are perfect to get into small spaces, between tiny teeth! Besides used in a scarce but very beatiful form of embroidery and shoe making, quils can serve as an extention of your fingers, adding greatly to your dexterity! When you often use hand carders or a drum carder, or even just a hair brush, you’ll know the frustration of having to get those little bits of annoying fibre off your brush or carder, or trying to lift a piece of VM from your immaculately carded fluff or pulled top without disturbing your lovely masterpiece and having the fibres coming along for the ride too… Quill to the rescue!
And picture this, your bat is pulled snugly around your drum carder, but there’s that annoying bit of second cut or nep staring at you, playing hide and seek – it’s just too small and tight to get your fingers in there, or even your picker tool. It serves as a perfect laying tool if you’re an avid embroiderer, tailor or quilter too! Try turning fabric corners without one, then use a quill for the next one… Perfect corners! Once you have one, you won’t imagine how you ever got around without it! I have them on hand everywhere… The Tiny ones even serve as a diz hook!
Porcupine quills also available in Medium, Small and Tiny.
Fingernails are fab tools, but quills are quintessential!
Weaving and embroidery special effects
We also have very long and thin quills available from time to time, used in woven wall hangings, and even hats, and my personal favourite, ‘quilling’.
The original way this term was used refers to a special technique used to create an immensely strong and durable, even waterproof fabric. The indigenous tribes in America used this technique to make protective breastplates, head bands and even mocassins!
This technique requires the soaking of quills in water, and once they are soft, they are flattened with an object, then sewn onto a piece of leather in a zig-zag folding movement, the first stitch at an angle, and every consequtive fold wrapping over the previous stitch.
The leather is usually cut in the desired shape beforehand. Once the sewing is done, the project can be completed, moulded in its desired shape to dry, and once the quills have dried out completely, the resulting object will be extremely durable!
Needless to say, this is a time-consuming procedure, but so worth the effort! I have a pair of moccasins on my to-do list…
Want to know more about what we do?
For more information on what else we have in store for you, refer to our pages for more information, https://verlorevallei.com/all-about-alpaca/ or contact us https://verlorevallei.com/contact/!
Follow us on our Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/Fibrewitch to stay up to date with our latest art yarns, fibre specials, bats and rolag packs! Many of which never make it to the website! What’s more, you will get a heads-up when new Majacraft stocks are about to arrive in South Africa, so you can have first dibs! Stock seldom makes it on to the website! We are also working on ‘How-to videos’ on numerous fibre related subjects and life on the farm, which will be posted on Facebook first, unless you follow us on YouTube already, in which case you will be notified. http://www.youtube.com/@VVAFibrecrafts
You can also join our Whatsapp group, where special fibre blend drops or VVA You Tube videos will be announced from time to time – https://chat.whatsapp.com/FWE0y6MTj0uEekmFSm3g6t
We usually also have the following natural alpaca fibre colours in stock, as we have animals in all these colours: Natural White, Light Fawn, Medium Fawn, Dark Fawn, Light Brown, Medium Brown, Dark Brown, Black, light Silver Grey, Medium Silver Grey, Dark Silver Grey, Light Rose Grey, Medium Rose Grey, Dark Rose Grey.
A section for dyed fibres will also be added. You are sure to find something to your liking!
We are always open to suggestions, and happy to help with custom orders. We also stock fibre of other sheep breeds that are sourced from the UK from time to time.
