If you’ve ever been to a powwow or an Indian casino you’ve seen jewelry with porcupine quills. While you can purchase small packets of porcupine quills both on and offline, you may also find yourself harvesting them from road kill. I wouldn’t advise trying to catch one though, because though they are slow, you could end up getting stuck, which is very not fun. The best way to harvest quills from a road kill is to take a large piece of Styrofoam and let the quills pierce it. They will still in the Styrofoam when you pull it away, and you can remove them later, very carefully I might add. You do not want a quill to pierce your skin as they have backward facing barbs and are designed to stay in the skin; they can fester and become infected easily. So, that being said, you now know to be very careful when harvesting quills.
Step 1: Carefully remove some of the quills from the Styrofoam. You can do this by carefully removing them with your fingers by grasping the quill in the middle and pulling, or with small pliers. If you use small pliers be very careful not to damage the quill by pinching too hard. Once you’ve removed a small amount and placed them in a plastic bowl or on a plate, take scissors and clip both ends. Make sure the ends make it to the trash can rather than the floor or your counter. Remember you do not want one of these to stick you, your child or animal in the finger or foot.
Step 2: Continue clipping the ends until you have finished as many of the quills as you want. Make sure to put the Styrofoam in the trash afterwards to prevent anyone else from getting stuck.
Step 3: Porcupine quills have a very soft interior and are delicate so you want to make sure you don’t do anything that will damage them. Once you’ve clipped the ends, then you can wash them in warm water with a mild soap. If they are especially dirty, leave them to soak for a bit.
Step 4: Rinse them off once you’ve soaked them and they are clean, and then lay them out on a paper towel to dry. Be careful to stopper the drain when rinsing, they are very light and can easily slip down the drain. If you stopper the drain that way if a few get away from you, you can remove them from the water and then drain it.
Step: When they are completely dry you can store them in any kind of plastic container with a lid.
That is all there is to preparing porcupine quills to be used in your Native American styled crafts. There are a variety of crafts you can use quills in such as earrings, chokers, and the very ancient practice of quillwork embroidery and loom work which was done by many tribes prior to the advent of glass beads.
