Getting my first Hide

I have been making things out of leather for quite some time. I really enjoy sewing with leather. There is no hemming, no fraying, no slipping.... Of course, there are the downsides, like every time the needle goes backwards into your finger. The biggest deterrent however is the cost of leather. It's not cheap.  I've bought pieces that are 40'' round for $75.00 (CAD)
Then one day I got it in my head that if I could just find a hunter that doesn't keep his own deerskins, I could get them. Of course my second thought is what hunter would be stupid enough to give away such a valuable piece of the deer? Well... apparently most of them :)

At this point I still didn't question why they were so willing to give me their hides, I just rolled with it. I started looking up tanning online and was shocked. From my initial research I concluded that there were 3 steps to tanning.
Step 1.  Pee on hides. If possible place in a container and soak in urine.
Step 2. Rinse pee off. Rub feces (pref. from dog) in hide. Let sit.
Step 1.  Rinse Feces off. Rub pre-made fermented brains onto hid, let soak in.

I thought, "I'm starting to realize why the hunters aren't so keen to an their hides". Nevertheless, I was not about to give up. There must be some kind of less stinky way. (At this point I was also tempted to inform all the Paris Hilton's of the world what their $5000 leather purses had gone through before being slung on their shoulders)

I went down to my leather store, Zelikovitz, to find a book on tanning hides. After looking for browsing for  a while I found one called, Deerskin to Buckskin.  What a great book. AND... no urine or feces involved.




With renewed faith and the book I went home to study. I decided before hunting season, I should really practice. I stopped at the local slaughterhouse and asked what they do with their skins. Apparently they also don't see the benefit of most hides (they sell the cow ones) and they pitch 'em out. "Come by on Thursday, you can have some" He says.

Ok. 2 days and I'm going to have a hide to work on. Get reading.

Thursday rolls around and I head on down. I don't know what I was expecting. I mean leather does start out as some animal's skin, but I was sure it wouldn't be like this. The man walks out with a plastic bag. He pulls out a blood soaked furry goat skin that still looks very much like a goat, just horribly dead. The people here are in fact very good at skinning, (A bonus for tanners). Unfortunately, on that day I wasn't so sure. The face was almost entirely intact, right down to the little nose. The only difference was that it's eyes were missing and it looked hollow and was dripping in blood. With a shaky laugh I thanked the man tossed the bag in a clean garbage bag, threw it in my car and drove home.
No turning back now. If only skins would tan themselves...