Still the definitive guide, Secrets of Eskimo Skin Sewing is packed with clear, easy-to-understand instructions, drawings, and photographs to lead readers of any skill level through the process of turning natural or man-made furs and hides into handsome, useful garments. Author Edna Wilder, one of the world's best-known practitioners and modernizers of traditional Eskimo skin sewing techniques, takes would-be skin sewers through the step-by-step work involved in constructing traditional items of clothing such as mukluks, parkas, and mittens. She also includes sewing instructions for belts, baby booties, a trapper-style fur cap, and toys.
Though natural fur and hides were the only ones known in traditional Eskimo lifeways, the book's guidance is completely adaptable to modern, synthetic leathers and artificial furs. Similarly, the guidance offered in these pages on traditional Native beadwork and basket making works just as well for plastic beads and basketry materials unknown to the Alaska wilderness.
ISBN-13: 9781889963129
Media Type: Paperback
Publisher: University of Alaska Press
Publication Date: 10-01-1998
Pages: 132
Product Dimensions: 5.20(w) x 8.10(h) x 0.40(d)
Edna Wilder lives in Fairbanks. She has taught classes in skin-sewing and basket weaving at the University of Alaska Fairbanks for over twenty years.
Table of Contents
Illustrations
Part One: How To Do It
Before You Begin
Preparing Hides and Skins
Tanning Hides
Patterns and Beadwork
Cutting and Sewing the Fur
Part Two: Things To Make
Baby Booties
Fur Mittens
Slippers
Mukluks
Trapper’s Fur Cap
Parkas
Eskimo Toys and Personal Things
Grass Baskets and Rugs
Acknowledgments
Index
About the Author
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