How We Tan Sheepskins into Beautiful Rugs

Enlarge Image Image Gallery

Article Tools

Image Gallery

Print

E-mail

Comments

RSS

As readers of More About Milk Sheep may recall, we keep a small flock of Corriedale sheep on our place in Minnesota. The breed is a very heavy wool producer, and as our first slaughtering time neared I began to look thoughtfully at our lambs' thick jackets. "Wouldn't it be nice," I thought, "to make the hides up into rugs? We'd have those around long after the chops and roasts are gone from the freezer."

I figured I ought to be able to prepare the sheepskins myself, and got some encouragement when Mother's Bookshelf promised that two of its offerings — HomeManufacture of Furs and Skins and Home Tanning and Leather Making Guide, both by A.B. Farnham — told all one needed to know about tanning hides in the "old homey way."

My early enthusiasm was dampened a little, it's true, when I called a professional tanner to ask about one of the chemical solutions the books recommended. "Madam," the expert informed me, "there is no way you can possibly tan those hides at home." Fortunately, he was wrong. I could, and you can too.

First, though, there was the little matter of the slaughter to get past. Come now, Mother Kirberger, you didn't go and make pets of your good gray ladies' young'uns, did you? Oh, didn't I? That first butchering day has to be a super shock to a city-raised person, and it was several weeks before the packages in the freezer could be looked upon as meat and not as personalities.

My introduction to tanning was also a bit of a shock, and yours will be likewise. Nothing I can tell you will truly prepare you for working with a fresh-off-the-sheep hide. I'll simply put it on record that when Mr. Farnham says tanning is essentially hard, dirty work, he ain't just a-foolin'. The business of getting, cozy with a dead sheep isn't something polite society (whomever that might include) would applaud ... though even the most genteel will have to admit that the finished product is a fine sight to behold.

If my warning hasn't discouraged you from "tanning your own" — and I hope it hasn't — I'll be glad to tell you about own first try ... and then summarize the method we use now nor that we have a little more experience.

As soon as those first lambs had been skinned I went to work and cut all excess meat and fat away from the hides. Then, when the body heat had left the pelts, I covered each with a half-inch layer of salt and left it to cure (a matter of four to six days).

Next, before the hides were completely dried, I “fleshed them out” (removed all tissues that clung to the skins). This is the step that takes the most time and effort. Since lambskin is thin and very easily cut, I used a hunting knife only to start sections of meat and fat peeling away, and then literally ripped the waste off with my bare hands . . . which refused to close at all by the end of the day. This was the one point in the whole tanning process where manly muscle would have come in handy. Manly Muscle, however, refused to touch the hides aside from helping to salt them down. (He also seemed to like me a lot better in the evenings after I’d put every stitch of my clothing in the wash and taken a bath. Dirty indeed, Mr. Farnham!)

RSS | Comments | E-mail | Print