Skin Sewing Class

Well, I went to my first skin sewing class tonight. It's free and they provide the supplies and pelts. I had no idea what to expect...

When my roommate and I got there, there were skins laid out across two tables. And there was a book with ideas in it. Everyone wanted to make baby mukluks (eskimo boots) because it was a good first project.

You would think the former vegetarian in me would be disgusted at the display of furs. But if you knew the story about how I was a little girl, I wore my rabbit fur coat to see 101 Dalmatians, (My mother looked at me & said, "You might not want to wear that coat to this movie.") you would know that my real first instinct in Alaska was "Pretty! And so soft!"

So I chose a beautiful gray & white rabbit pelt. It's so pretty. My mukluks are gonna look awesome!! (I don't know who these mukluks are for though - minor detail.)

I drew my pattern on the underside of the skin and was ready to cut my skin.

Now, you don't use scissors to cut skin. If you do, the fur goes everywhere. So, instead, you use a razor blade. You have to cut the skin gently to make sure you are only cutting skin, not fur. Otherwise, you have a huge mess.

My roommate got the hang of it really quickly. There wasn't a drop of fur around her workspace. So did my co-worker. She only had 3 or 4 tuffs lying on the floor. And none on her.

Me? Absolutely covered in rabbit fur. It was everywhere! Think I'm exaggerating? A couple of kids would come in every once & a while to brush the fur off my pants. The woman sitting next to me was having problems because rabbit fur kept flying up her nose. I had put on chapstick right before I came to the class. BIG MISTAKE.

I guess I hacked into the skin with a tad more gusto than I intended. Whoops.

The sewing part went alright. I had to restart only once because I was sewing with the fur facing the wrong way. I finished one main bootie part & it looks pretty good. Where the fur meets made this really cool white stripe down the back of the boot.

I had a good time. I would have liked it if more women from the village came. I was sewing with coworkers and co worker's wives, all of whom I really like, but I was hoping to interact more with villagers. That time will come, I hope.

Before the class, my roommate and I went walking down by the river. It's freezing over with ice chunks floating by. The bank is all icy now too. I grabbed a rock to try to crack the edge of the ice, but the rock must have been defective, because it landed only two feet in front of me. I'm sure it was the rock. ;) I'm grabbing my camera tomorrow to take some pics.

***CHICKEN MYSTERY UPDATE
So it was a ptarmigan that was laid on my porch. We think this is what happened: there was a bird hanging around the area. Most likely, kids threw rocks at it and killed it. Then they brought it to our house as a gift. Now I feel bad that I didn't keep it. But I didn't know what to do with it!!!!