the very first step in making the quill
beads that I use in my crafts in my
jewelry is selecting out the best quills
for the job there are different sizes
and types of quill in a single porcupine
I'll just pull some out for you so you
can see the
different different
types
cuz some quills they're suited perfectly
for making jewelry and other
quills
they're good for nothing except maybe
weaving if you're good at doing the
porcupine quill quill work in birch bark
or on leather in clothing some of these
like this one here is perfect for that
when you soak it but as a jewelry piece
it's not good so so I've sorted out a
couple pieces here now the first piece
that's right here that's just the guard
hair that's it's just a nice long piece
of hair this will be great for doing
some sort of weaving craft or something
of that sort so I'll just put that back
in there um these two quills right here
are excellent for doing my jewelry work
because they the head pins slide inside
of them very easily once they're soaked
now these two pills here they are very
very thin and they're not good at all
for any form of jewelry making that I am
doing right yet they are great for doing
quill work on birch bark and with beaded
headbands and stuff like that so I'll
save those for those but these are the
only types I'm sorting out right
now so I have all of the quills that I
want to use all sorted
out and the first thing I'm going to do
is I'm going to do a little bit of a
demonstration
here see if that folks all
right is porcupine
quills a lot of people would assume that
being a wild animal living outside
they're going to be full of a lot of
dirt and bacteria people think that
they're just really filthy diseased
ridden
creatures a like a lot of wild animals
now I'm not sure how true this is but I
did read somewhere that you don't have
to wash pory Pine quills because they
apparently have a antibacterial agent in
their skin they secrete a oil or
something that's antibacterial now I'm
not really sure how true this
is and I'm quite skeptical of that it
may be true because being an animal with
sharp barbs once in a while they
probably score themselves on them and
they risk infection but what I'm going
to do to test this is I these have not
been clean because that's what this
video is about I'm going to pour a
little bit of peroxide on them to see if
they bubble
well
so for some reason the camera stopped
recording there anyway what happened is
the peroxide did not bubble whatsoever I
wish I could have showed you that um
I'll get another batch maybe and this is
too hot to open but anyway I filled it
probably up to here with hydrogen
peroxide and I shook it all around there
was no bubbling going on whatsoever so
I'm assuming that the quills are very
clean but nonetheless you do want to
clean them really well especially if
you're using them for
jewelry so it was up to here with
hydrogen peroxide I put the lid on shook
it up for a couple minutes and then
afterwards I put some antibacterial soap
over top and filled the jar right up
with boiling hot water that's why I'm
not handling this as often cuz it's very
very
hot but what you can do is just shake
the bottle around as much as you can
stand to hold it or you can use some
oven mittens it probably would have been
smarter if I had prepared ahead of
time but you will
see some sediment coming off of those
quills there you can see it going around
so just let this soak for a while and
that'll soak off any surface dirt in the
hot water will kill off any bacteria
that is there even though the hydrogen
peroxide picked up absolutely nothing
and anybody who cleans with peroxide
knows that as soon as you put hydrogen
peroxide on a wound on your hand if
you're using it for
medical or if you put a little bit on a
countertop or you put it down the sink
it instantly starts bubbling because of
the bacteria didn't have it at all on
the porcupine quills so there may be a
little bit of a valid argument for the
theory I had read about porcupines
secreting a antibacterial
agent and I'm not sure how true that is
it would make sense if they did have
something like that but it's I don't
know what to say about it but still even
if it was true you still want to clean
the quills
because just look at all just look at
all that sediment
that's floating around in there that is
coming off of these
quills you you definitely want to make
sure that that's off them so we're just
going to let this sit cool down a little
bit and then we're going to come back
and I'll show you the next
step all right so what I've done is
after this is cooled down I took cold
water and replaced the water that was
the peroxide mix in the hot water and
the soap and I've strained that out I've
replaced with cold water a couple times
and that thoroughly rinsed the quills
then I took more hot water and they've
been soaking now what that does is it
softens the quill they're kind of
squishy and for this next step you are
going to need them to be soft so you
want to remove the Barb and you can see
there that it tapers to a very thin
taper you wanted to cut that off and
instead of just snipping it and having
it go flying method I found is put it
downwards into the
water and just snip that off I'm going
to do that with my other hand so that
you can see it
better you just take it
downwards in the water and just cut
that so that makes it safer for you
to work
with your tips are going to be right in
the water and they're not going to be a
hazard hope you can see what I'm doing
there it's just you put the tip of the
quill in the water scissors down snip
off and it just floats up it I'll do it
with this Nonet sharpen you see if you
snip it it just flies but if you do it
underwater it's controlled and you're
not going to have these go flying end up
in your sock your shoes your clothes
whatever and if you have pets or
children around you don't want them to
get a porcupine and quill
Splinter that is not
fun so anyway we've got this many of
them done so I'm just going to put the
lid back on this in case the cat comes
sniffing around and you want to keep
these soaking in warm water because you
need them
soft so I've got a length of St
stainless steel wire I think this is
probably
20 gauge or maybe a little thicker than
20
gauge um it could be an yeah I think
that's a 20 or
22 it it doesn't say on the package but
it's stainless steel snare
wire and the reason I use stainless is
because it does not tarnish it doesn't
rust it lasts for a very long time
so what you want to do is I don't know
if you can see this at all
but in the quill
here I'm just trying
to give that the contrast for you all
right you can see there it has a very
tiny white tip there it
focuses that inside it's the the Quill's
made of keratin and inside it's a very
soft it's kind of like
um oh there's a blade of grass I bull
rushes anybody who know who's ever
picked a bull rush it's really soft and
spongy inside porcupine quill is the
same the exact same um it's a very soft
keratin-like
material and you can you can push this
through but you have to go very
slow this is why softening it is so
important cuz you want to be able to
push that through without poking it
through the
um the outside
cartin so you can see I've pushed that
through here and slid it
on now you want to be very careful that
you avoid the edges cuz you can see a
little bit of I don't know if you can
see that there cuz it's not focusing
right see you might see a very thin line
from the stainless through the quill
that's okay but if it looks lumpy or
deformed you're going to want to
practice this a lot before you can get
it to go right so just snip that off at
the
end and leave enough room to put your
beads
on so this is what you're going to end
up with so I'm just going to do a few
more of these and bring you back for the
next
step it's now time to finish these up
and put the beads on
on you've seen to make these ones
here if I can get that to focus in it's
got the wire sticking straight out both
ends you can also do these on head pins
as well so I'm going to have couple
different types and a couple different
sizes so to finish off the double
end
you just slip your beads
on take your pliers and make a little
Loop
snug that
down and then do the same thing on the
other
side now if your wire is a little bit
too long just snip it
off
and there's how this bead looks when
it's
finished now this bead is going to be
used like a
spacer or another kind of
connector if you want your quills to be
at the end of a design you use your head
pin and you
just finish it up the same way as you
had on the other
one this one I'm just going to use one
bead so as you can see here it's very
very easy to make porcupine quill
beads um one thing that I have learned
over the years of doing this is that you
definitely want to soak your quills
first to make them soft cuz if you don't
it's really hard to get the wire through
them and you are more likely to rip them
than actually slide your PIN or your
wire
through so once I get a bunch more of
these made we going to do a video
showing you how to use them to make a
pair of
earrings so stay tuned to this channel
to see how to use these beads in a
project