The sweaters are famous. The Indigenous women who made them? Erased. Until now.
For almost a century, the Coast Salish knitters of southern Vancouver Island have produced Cowichan sweaters from handspun wool. These distinctive sweaters are known and loved around the world, but the Indigenous women who make them remain largely invisible.
Direction
Welsh centers Indigenous voices without exploitation—radically gentle approach.
Production
Intimate access to knitting circles, unpolished and genuinely collaborative.
Writing
Reclaims narrative from museums that displayed sweaters but not makers.
Director
Christine Welsh
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
The 'Sioux' name for these sweaters is itself colonial misattribution—Coast Salish weavers are Salish, not Plains nations.
Director Christine Welsh is Métis, making this rare 2000s documentary by an Indigenous woman about Indigenous women—still depressingly uncommon.
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