Join Karen Denise McIntyre with Creative Native for a two-day workshop on creating fish skin leather that can be made into earrings, booties, pouches, wallets, key chains or whatever your heart desires. Participants will learn to clean, dye and tan their own fish skin. All materials are provided, including the salmon skin, natural dyes & tanning supplies. Students should wear an apron & bring water and lunch; some light refreshments and snacks will be provided. Class size is limited; you must register ahead of time. Due to material prep required for this workshop, no refunds will be given with less than 72 hours notice. There is a $10 cancellation fee for all cancellations. This workshop takes place over two days. No single day registrations.

Day 1- November 22nd, 10:30am-1:30pm

Flesh, clean and wash your salmon skin to remove all oils. Learn about making natural dyes, and how to make your own tanning solution. Skins will be soaked in the tanning solution and left to dry overnight.

Day 2- November 23rd, 10:30am-1:30pm

Soften and wash the salmon skins to remove the tanning solution and rehydrate the salmon skin. Once washing and rehydrating is completed, students will add oil back to the salmon skin, pulling and stretching the oil back into the skin until it becomes a soft functional piece of leather.

Karen Denise McIntyre is of Yup’ik and Irish descent, and her family is from the Yukon Kuskokwim Delta. Karen has lived in Bethel & Sitka and currently lives in Anchorage, Alaska. Karen learned to work with fish skin in June of 2014 while living in Sitka. Since then, Karen has taken numerous other fish skin classes, and now teaches fish skin basket, leather & jewelry making classes in person and via Zoom. Her fish skin leather fashion accessories include earrings, necklaces, pendants, keychains, bracelets, and more. Recently she started trimming fine felt and straw hats with her salmon leather.