dragonlady7

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mxbuster https://mxbuster.tumblr.com/post/673585453788774400/bomberqueen17-mxbuster-replied-to-your-post-wknd :

bomberqueen17 https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/673583416107745280/mxbuster-replied-to-your-post-wknd-and-said :

mxbuster https://mxbuster.tumblr.com/ replied to your post wknd https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/673495615951552512/wknd and said:

                                         Be careful when salvaging old

furs. If they haven’t been stored properly they can have rot. Also if you’re sewing them the skin pieces need a muslin backing so your stitches won’t tear through the skins.

Please tell me more!!! I assume rot would be fairly apparent; I plan to have to discard a lot of the fur if it’s bald or worn or gross or whatever.

How can I attach the muslin backing? I had been wondering about this! Of the two stoles I’ve bought so far, one has no lining and so it’s just the fur and then some felt padding, clearly meant to be interlining for bulk, and I was wondering how it was attached. Could I use like, spray adhesive to attach the muslin, or do I need to attempt to carefully quilt or tack it into place?

I’d been figuring that the blanket would need to be lined, and I’d been pondering whether to put a quilted lining on, and whether maybe I want to attach that to some interlining on some of the furs, to give them some body. I have a ton of unspun wool that I figured I’d sort of roughly felt to provide the bulk/batting, but I really don’t know what I’ll put on the back of the blanket. Probably just flannel or something. Maybe even just plain cotton or linen, the furs themselves should be plenty in terms of insulation.

I also hope to use some of the offcuts to make fake hides of fake animals to use as decor, so we’ll see how that goes. If I don’t get weird with this what’s the point?

And like, of course the woolly mammoth, but i haven’t totally concepted that one out either. (the tusks on my childhood one were felt with a wire armature but i’m not a tiny child now so i could perhaps do something more ambitious. maybe carved wood??)

OKAY. There’s so much I wanted to pass on but it would be an infodump and I didn’t want to swamp you.

Fur coats: disassemble with particle protection and vacuum the skin side. (Check for mold) Skins should be soft and flexible. Hardening or rot will be visible on the skin side, skin side might be oily and tear easily. Fur coats are kept in cold storage because the leather part can’t be tanned like garment leather is or the fur falls off. Large pieces of furs are made up of little slices of similar haired skins so expect a lot of threads. It can also be kind of yucky inside vintage coats.

Backing (for stuffed animals) Muslin is there like coutil is in a corset, to take the strain of stuffing so the skin doesn’t suffer too much strain. I have never tried spray adhesive (in school we used craft glue stick glue). My only worry is spray glue might gunk up the needle and thread while you are stitching. Tiny stitches, fine leather needle if you have one, thimble if you don’t. Pin brush from a pet store to fluff the fur out after stitching and piecing.

Quilt/ blanket: wool batt would be amazing, my suggestion would be to sandwich it between two layers of cotton (your idea of flannel would be great on the outer facing part) and then after it’s encased, quilt it through with buttons or ties in a tufted style.

CAVEAT ABOUT FURS: honestly if you are making stuffed animals and home decor you are probably ok. But I would be leery about making, like, an everyday fur blanket for close up use unless the skins were professionally cleaned. An outdoor cozy by the campfire blanket would be a great piece, but I would be hesitant to put it on a bed indoors. Your mileage and concerns may vary, however. I know people use hair-on sheepskins and cowhides but that is a different tanning process. You may want to research this more closely or if you catch me on a Friday night I will do a deeper dive.

Faux taxidermy; hilarious. Do it.

i have literally scheduled this to reblog on friday afternoon to ask you for more information, I love this. Please infodump.

My brother-in-law has had deer hides both home-tanned and professionally-tanned, and says the process is about the same either way but it’s just too much work for him to bother with, so I was planning on asking him fore more details. He said mostly it’s salt, but then there is a chemical you buy that you work into the skin afterward to cure it, so I’d have to find out what that chemical is. (He just kept calling it The Stuff.)

I received two vintage coats I’d bought, and both are damaged enough that I don’t feel bad disassembling them. (I was trying not to bid on ones that looked like they were in really good shape! I feel like the thing about restyling vintage clothing is that sometimes it’s a dick move to take a thing that’s in perfect shape and make it be something else for no reason, y’know?) So I have them out in my sunporch airing for the moment, it’s a bit below freezing and I won’t leave them there long but I might brush them out, out there. I have a wire brush the cat doesn’t care for.

I have no idea what kind of fur these are though… (Your picture was not posted)