Sustainable Living Project:: Rawhide Checkbook Cover

Rawhide Check Cover

Rosalee wanted to get rid of the plastic covers for her checkbooks so she asked me to make some for her. Obviously, that's not really an ancestral skill but it's a good example of how we can meet our present needs sustainably using natural materials made at home and the covers turned out really nice so I thought I'd share with you all how I made them.

I used rawhide from a deer. To make rawhide, you need to flesh the green skin, then soak the hide until the hair slips, and then use a scraper to remove the hair/grain layer and the membrane layer on the other side. You can review these steps by watching the first video of the brain-tanning series here.

You can just have white rawhide but I decided to dye it a little with black walnut hulls so I soaked it in a solution for about 24 hours and then rinsed it several times until the rinse water ran clear (more or less). You can review the steps to dyeing with black walnut hulls here.

Because rawhide is not tanned it will dry stiff so it's important to stretch it in a rack so that it dries flat. If you let it dry by itself it will bend and curve every which way and it will make it difficult to work with. To review the steps to stretch a hide in a rack watch the first video (starting at the 2:20 min mark) and the second video in the Making a Sheepskin rug series here.

Now that you have your nice flat rawhide you can cut your pattern out of it. For the checkbook cover, cut out a rectangle 12 inches by 6.5 inches (it doesn't look rectangular in the picture because of my bad angle but it is).

Rectangular piece of dyed rawhide

Then fold the hide in half, pinching the fold strongly so that it remains bent but not too much so as to allow for the thickness of the checkbook later on.

Folded Piece of Rawhide

Also fold each end inward, 2 inches and 5/8 from the edge, and pound those folds with a hammer or a smooth stone a little so that they keep their strong fold.

Folded Flaps

Punch holes through both layers of hide on the side of each flap. Make sure to use a nicely tapered awl so as not to tear the rawhide. Punch 8 holes on each side, about 1/4 inch apart and 1/8 inch from the edge.

Punch holes on the side of the flaps

Stitch one of the flaps using a buckskin thong. A simple running stitch, as shown in the picture, is probably best so as not to tear the holes any bigger. With an even number of holes your knots will be on the inside of the cover.

First flap all sewn up

The second flap generally has a little window so that you can write through it. For that purpose, using a sharp knife, make incisions 3/8 of an inch from the three sides of the flap.