Vibrantly dyed porcupine quills embroidered into Mi’kmaq garments were greatly admired by the early-seventeenth-century settlers, who could not find such intense colours in their own European wardrobes. Finding a ready market for their work, enterprising Mi’kmaq women began to apply the labour-intensive art of quillwork to on handmade products such as birch-bark sewing boxes, chair seats, trays, and a host of other domestic accouterments for a well-appointed Victorian home. Now faded, we can still get a sense of the once-radiant colours of the quills, arranged in repeating patterns of four to signify the cardinal directions, harmony and balance.

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