Preparing for Week 2: Washing sheep skins (prep step)

When to wash your sheep skin? That depends:

On climate

(1) if you're in a cool climate, you can wash your sheep skin as early as today, May 13, or anytime onwards

(2) If you're in a dry and hot climate, best to wait until Thursday, May 15

On experience

(1) If you've washed sheep skins before and/or feel confident to make it happen, you can go ahead and wash anytime based on the guidelines above.

(2) if you're brand-new and/or want to wash your sheep skin with the group, then follow the instruction in the video above before Thursday's session, and have your sheep skin soaking while we have the live call. You can wash it after the call and/or alum-taw it before washing - basically, your let your intrinsic motivation guide you. Challenge yourself if that's what here for; stick with group support if you could use it.

After washing:

(1) Hang the skin to drip-dry, anywhere from one hour to several days. Use your scraping beam, a fence, a sawhorse, or an upside-down tote.

(2) Watch the skin side to make sure the skin doesn't dry out too much and become stiff (rawhide)

(3) Place the sheep skin in a bag in the fridge if it's drip-dried and hot out, and you still have some time before our Thursday call

Temperature clarifications:

“cool” = around 15 C or 60 F

“hot” = 20-25 C or 80-ish F

“really hot” = 30C or 85 F - if you live in these temps right now, keep your sheep skin in the shade and refridgerate it after washing/drip-drying