Hide Club: SPECIALIZED

Smoke-tanning intensive

make hide tanning your own

An online immersion on the natural method smoke-tanning, the original handcraft.

Join from anywhere in the world. Learn to tan hides where you live. Meet our community of creative, hard-working, hilarious, tender hide tanners who are old + new to Hide Club. Ground in this embodied, tactile textile art: the craft of artisan hide tanning.

We have a bonus for this year’s smoke-tanning intensive….hybrid tanning. We’ll combine our smoke-tans with minerals and tannins to get the best of all worlds (of course, this is optional for those interested!) At the end of each completed hide project, we’ll show you how to use tannins to dye your hide and add some water resistance to the finished buckskin or fur.

Some hide tanning experience is recommended for Hide Club: SPECIALIZED - please have your own scraping beam + softening frame ready to go. Email us if you have any questions about equipment.

Registration closes April 15.

How to Join:

  1. Choose your sliding-scale tuition + register below

  2. Purchase your materials kit if needed: includes 2 full-size hides and ingredients to match

How to Make the Most of the Club:

  1. Get our recommended tools. See here.

  2. Catch calls live or watch recordings soon after

  3. Carve out time in your calendar + make it your hide time

Returning Hide Club members:

Use code BACKAGAIN at checkout for 15% off your chosen tuition tier. We’d love to see you again.

Registration open now Until April 15

Program runs May 1 to June 26 | Wednesdays @ 4:30-6pm PT/7:30-9pm ET


What it’s like inside Hide Club:

A biweekly live, recorded call on Zoom. Thirty hours of dedicated hide tanning time over 8 weeks. Guidance from Mara + tech support by Bonnie plus a whole crew of experienced tanners sharing insights and innovations.

Two hide projects that you have hands-on support creating in your backyard: a buckskin cloth + a fur textile. Made in the old way. You get the ingredients you need to tan in your materials kit - plus one deer skin and one sheep skin for each. If you’re bringing your own hides, you can use deer, goat, or sheep for any + all of our projects.

Hide Club is a group of learners and teachers who all learn from each other. We explore options for the techniques that work for you. We hold reverence for the animals whose hides we work. We respect the lineages that innovated this craft tradition. We talk science. We tell stories. We laugh at our mistakes. And we’re here for the awkward parts of learning as much as for the game-changing aha! insights that you get with each hide you tan.

Our Schedule


Some schedule changes may happen before we begin

Wednesday sessions are 4:30-6pm PT | 11:30am-1pm GMT

Saturday + Sunday sessions are 10am-1pm PT | 6-9pm GMT

May 1

Opening + intro to smoke-tanned buckskin

May 11-12

Scraping deer skins + applying a fat emulsion

Framing + softening

May 15

Dry-scraping + pumicing

May 25-26

Reconstituting + hand-softening

Smoking our finished buckskins

May 29

Intro to fur textiles + hybrid tanning

June 8-9

Framing + softening

Dry-scraping + pumicing

June 12

Combing woolly sheepskins + Q&A

June 22-23

Smoking

Reconstituting + softening

June 26

Closing

What you get in HIDE CLUB

  • You’ll know exactly what’s going on under the microscope in hide tanning

  • You’ll learn the principles of smoke-tanning and how to combine it with other methods

  • You’ll be able to re-create the process at home long after the program ends

  • You’ll be a more knowledgeable, perceptive, and skillful tanner

your sliding scale tuition

Flexibility for accessibility  

Part of our ethos at Fern + Roe is community care. We take this literally, meaningfully. We want to support your hide tanning practice as fully we can. And I believe that now more than ever is the time to root into this craft - to build capacity by growing your skillset.

The sliding scale model is one way to do this. You choose the cost tier that works best for you, no questions asked. If you’re in a position to pay higher and offfset a sponsored spot, we welcome it. If you’re in a position to pay lower and have your costs offset, we’re here for it. Scroll below to see some guidelines to help decide. Prices are in USD.

And we’re offering 15% for returning Hide Club members: use code BACKAGAIN at check-out.

Choose from one of three tiers below.
For Indigenous aspiring hide tanners, we offer waived tuition for you if the cost is a barrier. Click on the Sponsored Tuition spot below to take us up on this. We have a limited number of sponsored spots for each cohort.

Tier 1

$249

This price is for you if, for ex…

  • you struggle to meet necessities, such as paying rent

  • it would take 3+ months to save up for the next tier

  • Hide Club would be your main program investment for the year

Tier 2

$299

This price is for you if, for ex…

  • you can meet your basic necessities, but are not yet building savings

  • it would take 3+ months to save up for the next tier

  • Hide Club is one of a small number of other programs you can invest in this year

Tier 3

$349

This price is for you if, for ex…

  • you can meet your basic necessities and are building savings

  • you do not need to save up to join

  • Hide Club is one of several other programs you are investing in

Indigenous Sponsored Tuition

$0

This price is for you if, for ex…

  • you are part of a First Nation, Métis, Inuit, or Native American community

  • the tuition cost is a barrier to you


    The materials kit is an out-of-pocket expense.

    Not sure? See more details here

Need more help choosing? Here’s some tips:

  • hold yourself to a standard of both personal honesty and community reciprocity. For ex, if you have low-income but high assets, take this into account knowing that choosing a lower tier takes a spot away. Or, if you are joining Hide Club to start a hide tanning business, take this investment return into account.

  • also, hold yourself to lightness and care. Is this a particularly tough time for you? Would a higher tier impact your quality of life but a lower tier (and the experience within Hide Club) enhance it? Are there other ways you give back to your community that aren’t financial?

  • remember, the tier you choose today doesn’t have to stay the same from one year to the next.

What we’re tanning

Smoke-tanned (Braintanned) buckskin

Dyeing // Hybrid-Tanning

Sheepskin or Deerskin Rug

Your materials kit includes a preserved deer hide + sheep hide. You’ll turn these into buckskin + a fur rug/blanket.

If you bring your own hides, you can use deer, goat, or sheep for either the buckskin or the fur textile.

Every hide project is done alongside each other over Zoom, so your questions are answered in real time. Recordings are available within 48 hours and our course portal with recordings is open until the end of 2024.

I’m in!

Click here to sign up and grab your materials kit.

It’s not just the skill of hide tanning you grow with each hide you tan

It’s hands-on capableness. it’s connection to ancestry.

It’s community, it’s resilience.

words from hide club

  • “All I want to do is gush about how awesome it was and how much more there is to learn. I miss the gathering and all the check-ins."

    Renée-Lynn D

  • “Thank you again for creating and curating such a magical space and community.”

    Katelyn K

  • "For so many of us that are hide tanners, the feeling of magic, wonder, and restoration is palpable- this coursework is the inner knowing, made tangible."

    Emily M

  • “I have left the program feeling held, supported, witnessed, and celebrated by this particularly impressive and deeply kind and supportive community. I feel well resourced + more equipped emotionally, practically, and spiritually to engage in right relationship to this craft ."

    Marissa S

  • "Such a depth of knowledge from the teachers/mentors and peers alike. There are so many nuances captured in each of our hide practices."

    Jackson R

  • "The flow of the program was seamless - each session intentional and rich, with enough repetition and hands-on learning to gain confidence and learn quickly. Well done, really, what a successful transition to offering something so tactile online. I’m in awe!"

    Laura H

 FAQs

  • Thursday calls are 60-90 minutes and Saturday calls are about 3 hours with a break in the middle. We work hides in real time on Saturdays and include a lunch break. You’re always welcome to drop in or out as needed. The hides decide when they are done.

  • Yes. Every call is recorded and available in our online space for the reminder of the calendar year. You get another ten months to practice hide tanning and go over what you learned.

    • deer hide

    • sheep hide

    • framing string + needle

    • Calx (lime powder)

    • alum

    • salt

    • protective gloves

    • and more!

    • have

    • scraping beam ant a frame already built

    • a large (10-gal) soaking bin (ie Rubbermaid)

    • a standard 5- or 6-gal bucket

    • our recommended tools:

  • The main instructor is Mara Cur.

    Our tech artisan is Bonnie Klohn.

    We host guest speakers every year and we’ll announce this year’s speakers soon!

I’m in!

Click here to sign up and grab your materials kit.