7-DAY ANIMAL USE INTENSIVE SCOTLAND

Join this hands‑on course in Scotland and learn about animal processing, deer‑skin tanning and soft‑leather sewing

How to book: I'm running this course with Woodland Ways, who handle all bookings and payments. Book your place on their website.

Have you ever wondered what happens to the parts of an animal that don’t make it onto your grocery store shelves? Or how you can turn a raw skin into leather?

This 7-day course will give you the knowledge you need to process an animal efficiently and use as much of it as possible! You will then have the opportunity to turn a raw skin into soft, chamois-like leather and learn the sewing techniques best suited to making this type of leather into beautiful, usable products.

Animal Processing:

This part of the course will introduce you to which parts of an animal are useful for which products, and how to preserve them until you can use them. We will cover basic butchery for both food and utilitarian items, as well as often-overlooked parts.

Learn to use a range of materials during the course. Some examples of what will be covered include:

• Organs: Remove, sort, and clean edible organs as well as utilitarian ones, such as brains for tanning the skin, the bladder for water bags, and intestines for thread.

• Skin: Remove the skin, de-flesh it, and preserve it for later use and for making hide glue.

• Meat: Remove the meat; learn which cuts suit different uses. Debone, make roasts, jerky, and soup meat—basic meat preservation.

• Fat: How to render fat for preservation.

• Bones: How to separate joints, use bones as food, and make tools from bones, such as skin-processing tools, awls and needles, fishhooks, harpoon and arrow points, and jewelry.

• Sinew: How to remove, clean, and preserve backstrap and leg sinew, and how to process it later into fiber for sewing, bowstrings, hafting, bow backing, etc.

• Hooves: How to process the hooves for decorative items or hoof glue.

• Antlers: If antlers are present, how to remove them and how best to work with them.

  
  

The course will cover a wide range of introductory subjects and will evolve based on weather and participant interests.

* Multiple levels of technology, from stone to steel, will be covered.

Deer Skin Tanning:

Before modern tanning agents, humans turned raw skin into usable leather products using basic techniques and materials. Learn to produce incredibly soft, strong, and durable leather from raw animal skin using one of humankind’s earliest tanning technologies! Utilizing materials readily available in the surrounding environment, we will walk through the steps of this transformation. Come learn how this process progresses from raw skin to beautiful, usable, finished leather!

The tanning section of this course focuses on tanning deer skins using a variety of fat-tanning methods that use lecithin and oil* as the dressing agent. It may not be for the squeamish, but the end product is worth the work! The class covers removing the meat and fat (de-fleshing), removing the outer grain layer (de-graining), alkalizing to remove ground substance, applying the tanning agents (dressing), and softening and smoking the skins.

In addition to enthusiastic instruction, I provide comfortable, easy-to-use tools and detailed handouts covering the tanning process, along with ethnographic anecdotes and a list of helpful literature for those who want to further their knowledge of tanning! The course includes plenty of memorable moments, lots of practical information, and, if you put in the work **, you'll head home with a beautiful, unique, usable piece of traditionally tanned leather!

* The use of brains or egg yolks as an alternative dressing agent will be covered.

** Please be aware that a reasonable amount of fitness is required for this course. I will teach good technique and timing with the skins, but you will need to be on your feet and active for 6 to 8 hours per day.

Any serious injuries or disabilities need to be discussed with me prior to booking onto the course, please!

Bag Making:

The last section of the course covers how to craft one of the most practical, useful, yet underrated items you can make from leather: a bag. Often overlooked until you need one, a bag is essential.

You will learn a variety of stitches suited to soft, oil-tanned leather. We will cover basic patterning concepts and how to choose the right stitch for different seams. After making a paper pattern, we will construct a small bag from soft, fat-tanned leather that incorporates many of the seams and stitches covered earlier in the course. You can also use sinew and intestine thread made earlier in the course to sew part of the bag, if you choose.

You can add design elements to make your bag unique!

After completing this course, you will have the skills and confidence to process animals, tan skins, and produce functional works of art of your own!

Course Details:

Duration: 7 days (Friday Aug. 6, 10 am – Thursday Aug. 12, 5 pm).

Max number of participants: 14

Prerequisites: None, this workshop is suitable for ages 18+.

Food: The course is fully catered, with main meals made from meat from animals processed during the course.

Location: East Lothian, Scotland - Blinkbonny Wood. Blinkbonny sits on the edge of the Lammermuir Hills - 100 acres of stunning mixed canopy forest. Find more info and directions at Woodland Ways.

Transportation:

• Airport Pick-up: Airport pick-up can be arranged for an extra fee - please contact Woodland Ways directly

• Public Transport: Public transport to the area is easily accessible, with international flights into Edinburgh and Edinburgh Waverley Train Station.

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Host: Woodland Ways - contact them directly with any questions about bookings, payment, accommodation, transport, food, and logistics.

Venue: Blinkbonny Wood sits on the edge of the Lammermuir Hills - 100 acres of stunning mixed canopy forest with a patchwork of birch, hazel and Scots pine, gorse and heather. From the woodland boundaries, you can see stunning views of the hills in one direction, and the coast and idyllic rolling farmland in the other.

Located just 20 miles from Edinburgh and 5 miles from Haddington, Blinkbonny Wood is a great spot to see roe deer, badgers, and various owls. Both the hills and moors are easy to access.

Plenty of room for tents, tarps, or hammocks to relax and enjoy nature. A communal fire is available for cooking and socializing.

Accommodation included: Shared bell tents (2–3 people), but feel free to bring your own camping gear if you'd prefer.

Included: All course materials, coffee/tea, food, and bell tent accommodation.

Not included: Off-site accommodation.

Instructor: Theresa Emmerich Kamper

How to Book

Bookings, payment and cancellations for this course are handled by our hosts, Woodland Ways.

Explore More Courses:

From single‑day introductions to immersive three‑ and four‑day experiences — learn hide tanning, coyote fur preparation, fish‑skin tanning and use, and full animal processing. Each course builds practical skill and deeper understanding of traditional craft.

A bit about me:

I'm an avid practitioner of traditional living skills and various forms of primitive technology. My interest grew partly from growing up in the USA's Rocky Mountains, where backpacking, hunting, and fishing are deeply rooted in the culture. This passion led me to the academic field of Experimental Archaeology, where I earned a PhD from the University of Exeter in the UK.

My work has appeared in documentaries and popular TV shows, including Alone Season 8 and Surviving the Stone Age. I've been tanning skins using traditional methods for over 30 years. Learning to tan was a natural extension of my desire to use as much of an animal as possible, and it also produced a beautiful end product.

In my instruction, I share a wide range of information—from the intricate details of skin morphology to helpful tips for dealing with the numerous, frustrating problems often encountered when you're first learning to tan.