Bark-tanned Sheepskin Rug
Hi Hide Club!
Throughout our season, there will be some at-home hidework items you’ll need to do yourself, to get read for hte next live session.
The first is: washing your sheep skin.
This will take up to 20 minutes of active attention if you wash by hand. Or, you can put the sheep skin in a washing machine.
If you ordered a materials kit, you have a salted sheep skin. Preserved, not tanned. The following instructions are for washing wet-salted sheep skins.
If you hand-wash a skin, you will need to use a a few dozen gallons of water and need an area that can handle the water drainage.
Details
First, rinse your hide of salt by laying it on the ground and spraying with a hose.
Then submerge the hide into a tote full of cool water for 20-60min for the salt to fully dissolve.
Take the skin out and hang on a sawhorse or fence-beam or other surface to let it drip and lose some of the water it’s holding in its wool
Next, choose to wash your sheep skin in a washing machine or by hand.
Option 1: Washing machine
Put your thoroughly rinsed skin in a washing machine on a Gentle Setting (with cool water)
Make sure your Gentle Setting is set to a ‘slow’ spin cycle
Use a natural laundry detergent
The skin will be a perfect ‘moisture content’ after the spin cycle. You can then immediately begin acidifying it or you can put the skin on pause by placing it in a fridge or freezer.
Option 2A: Wash by hand (hose)
Once the wool has let go of some of its water, continue to hand the skin on a fence or sawhorse - or, better yet, lay it flat on top of an overturned tote - and rinse the wool with a hose for several minutes, until the wool starts to look clean.
Add a natural soap or use Ivory or Dawn dish detergent. Suds up the wool with your hands or a brush.
Rinse the soap with a hose and repeat until you are happy with the result.
The skin will be sopping wet once you’re finished. Let it drip-dry until the wool is no longer releasing water and the skin is light enough to carry. You can then immediately begin acidifying it or you can put the skin on pause by placing it in a fridge or freezer.
Options 2B: Wash by hand (tote)
Once the wool has let go of some of its water, submerge it in a tote full of cool or warm water
Add a natural soap or use Ivory or Dawn dish detergent. Suds up the wool with your hands or a brush.
Take the skin out of the tote and hang nearby. Discard the water. Add the skin ack into the tote and submerge.
Repeat rinsing and sudsing as many times as you like until you are happy with the result.
The skin will be sopping wet once you’re finished. Let it drip-dry until the wool is no longer releasing water and the skin is light enough to carry. You can then immediately begin acidifying it or you can put the skin on pause by placing it in a fridge or freezer.
Timing for Hide Club
We will acidify our skins to prepare them for bark-tanning on Thursday Feb 20’s call. You can have your skin in the fridge or freezer if you wash it in advance, or you can wash it right before our call. If you’re someone who prefers to watch instruction first and then do after, you can wash + acidify your skin Friday morning and still be ready for bark-tanning Saturday morning (24 hours).