Arctic Talent: Naujaat seamstress balances her passion and family

If it was up to Julia Natseck, she would be sewing all the time.

“If I had the materials every day, I would sew every day,” she says. “I would be happiest.”

She is a mother of five living in Naujaat, a community where textiles for one parka without fur can cost up to $250, she says. Because of that, Natseck sometimes has to choose between her passion and being able to afford food for her family.

And she always chooses her family.

Still, sewing is something that connects Natseck to her ancestors — she can hardly imagine herself without it, she says.

So the seamstress, carver and jewelry maker recently took some time to talk about how she mastered this ancient skill.

1990: Natseck was five years old when her grandmother, prominent carver and seamstress Cecilia Angutialuk, sat her down and said it was time for her to learn her way around a thread and a needle.

“You hold the needle this way, then turn it like this and make sure you don’t hurt yourself,” Natseck recalls her grandmother’s instructions.

A few hours later, Natseck’s little doll had a brand-new white amauti.

“I was so amazed I could do it, when I finished it,” she says.

2001: For years, she had been practising with pieces of textile she could find. But when her first son was born, she took apart an old amauti she had, traced it and made a new one that she would use with her firstborn. She says it was mostly for practise, but she loved it so much that she would make a new amauti every month for nearly the next year and a half, eventually totalling more than 15 amautiit.

Along with sewing, Julia Natseck is also a carver and a jewelry maker who inherited her skills from her grandmother, prominent Naujaat artist Cecilia Angutialuk. (Photo courtesy of Julia Natseck)

2005: An important milestone for every artist — Natseck sold one of her creations for the first time. Those were sealskin mitts, for which she received $150.

“I was proud of myself that I could feed my family with that,” she recalls.

2012: Natseck’s husband bought her a sewing machine. It was a white Husqvarna Viking Emerald 116, one of her favourite things in the world.

2018: Natseck’s entire family are huge hockey fans. Her husband is a New York Rangers guy. Three of her sons are Montreal Canadiens fans, and her youngest cheers for the Pittsburgh Penguins. So one day, when Natseck was making new parkas for them, she copied the logo design of their favourite teams and added them on the fabric.

“They were so happy,” she says.

2025: In the years that she has been sewing, the price of textiles has nearly tripled, making it impossible for her to sew as much as she wants. But she carries on as much as she can, sewing, carving or making small jewelry.

She says she can accept orders for her work from anywhere in Canada, but customers will have to pay postal fees.

Tip from the trade: Never leave your projects halfway through. Once you have started, don’t stop. That’s a piece of advice Natseck’s grandmother gave her when she was young, and she’s followed it ever since.

“One time, I was making an amauti for 23 hours straight,” she says.

Natseck’s Arctic talent picks: Fellow seamstresses and artists Susan Nuluk and Elizabeth Kidlapik.