Sheepskin Rug: natural bark-tanned leather
natural bark-tanned leather
in-person | hands-on | alchemic craft
You receive a fresh sheep hide, ethically salvaged from agricultural waste. Learn to tan it yourself + take home your transformed creation at the end: a soft + supple traditional leather sheepskin rug.
Made through the alchemy of plants x hide, this is the ancient, ethical, + sustainable craft of hide tanning.
Our natural tanning method is Bark-tanning, also known as veg-tanning. Bark-tanning is the original method that created belts, bags, shoes, and everything we make with chrome-tanned leather today. We will use traditional techniques to harness nontoxic plant tannins + mix these with sheep skins gleaned from small scale local farms. Your leather sheepskin rug is a durable textile that can be taken camping, used as a bedroll or picnic blanket, and washed in a regular laundry machine. With proper care, it is a material that will last a lifetime.
Dates: September 13-14, 2025
Schedule: 11am to 4pm each day
Location: W̱SÁNEĆ Peninsula, Vancouver Island
Investment: $477 CAD ($349 USD)
Sales Close Thursday, August 28
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Details
The Process
Bark-tanned leather involves both hide work and plant work.
Hide Tanning Steps
🐑 First we take sheepskins that have been preserved in salt + wash them thoroughly to prepare for tanning. The hides are acidified (“pickled”) using vinegar.
🌱 Then we make a strong tea from the bark of Doug-fir + Acacia trees. In hide tanning, we call this making a bark-liquor. Plants are full of a water-soluble constituent called tannin.
The tannins will react with the hide’s proteins + do all the transformative work of turning the hide to leather while we take a break.
🧥 Next we choose finished sheepskins thoroughly tanned. We add the finishing touches of racking them into frames, drying, and oiling them.
📏 We complete our work with brushing the wool fleece + pumicing the leather to perfection.
You take home your beautiful, durable leather creation today
About Bark-tanning
One of four natural hide tanning methods - the means by which we create ethical + sustainable leather.
Bark-tanning is mixing hide with tannins extracted from plants - often, bark. Tannins are water soluble + easily move into water when heated, making a tea. Traditionally, we call this a “bark liquor.”
The hide is submgered into the bark liquor + the tannins begin moving into the hide. When they make contact with proteins in the hide, the proteins reconfigure.
A hide turns into leather before our eyes, over days and weeks - and for large hides like cattle it can take month. The completed leather also takes on the pigment of the plant species. Doug-fir leather is burnt orange while Oak leather is beige while Willow leather is brown - and here on the coast, Red Alder leather is bright red.
WHAT YOU TAKE HOME
✔️ Learn the science and chemistry of bark-tanning: how tannins and collagen are the building blocks of this method, how to re-create the process at home with your local barks.
✔️ Learn the steps in the process, what basic equipment and tools are needed.
✔️ Take home your completed, bark-tanned sheepskin leather rug.
OVERNIGHT ACCOMMODATIONS
You are welcome to stay at Anneth Farm during the hide tanning course (affectionately known as a “hide camp”).
We have camping spots available in a secluded meadow + The Loft guest suite above the horse barn.
Spending down time with your new tanning cohort makes the weekend take on a whole different dimension.
It’s a true retreating out of time and into an immersion of nature, community, and ancestral reverence.
