Icelandic make beautiful, iconic sheepskin, very Viking with their wispy long fibers. Unfortunately, they happen to be one of the more finicky of all sheepskin to tan. Their skin almost always seems different, fragile. Often, we see the hair buds popping through the skin while fleshing. I had started to believe that the longer the fiber on a sheep, the thinner the skin. But that doesn’t ring true across the spectrum of breeds we work with. It is particularly common in Icelandic.
A weird batch of hides came through the tannery, two batches actually. They did not finish like we wanted them to. They didn’t seem to take up the tannage evenly. They had hard spots. They tore. They were so fragile throughout the process. These hides were not from a new customer. We have tanned sheepskin for these shepherdesses before. We brainstormed with the customers, trying to find a cause.
Fast forward a few months and one of the same shepherdesses is having trouble packaging her hides. They are cracking and very fragile. After some back and forth it seems the hides were prepped properly. She fleshed them and salted them day one. She brought them into a controlled environment to cure, etc. So why are they so fragile?
One expert surmised that maybe they dried too quickly.
Unsatisfied by that answer, I turned to the internet. I found a scientific paper written in Reykjavik, Iceland in 1997 by Emma Eythorsdottir. In the study “Genetic variation in woolskin quality of Icelandic lambs” she describes what is called double-leather (coined in a 1983 study by Adalstensson). Double-leather involves the “looseness between the corium and the grain layers…sometimes the innermost skin layer is torn open during processing”. She goes on to talk about the damaged areas characterized by weak areas on the skin. She was able to conclude that this characteristic is genetically linked. In fact, of the flocks she tested 80% of the sheep experienced this double-leather quality. It was also determined based on this study that environment had little to no effect on the double-leather prevalence. If you are a science nerd like me, I highly recommend reading the full study. Emma’s team didn’t have funds for phenotypic research to determine what genes were responsible for the phenomenon, but such is science; you can only get as far as your funding will take you.
The photos on the left show the “double-leather” or splitting of the corium and grain layer in the leather. I wrote an earlier blog talking about these spots. In that blog I talked about how these spots were indicative of bacteria. I don’t dispute that now. I am just adding to the list of many variables in tanning. I do still believe that bacterial action can cause the splitting. I also now believe that it has a genetic component. In the aforementioned article from Reykjavik the author also wrote about the rump end of the sheep having weaker skin susceptible to splitting.
All this to say that there are many reasons why sheepskin do not turn out perfectly every time. While we repeat the same process on all the hides we process at Driftless, the results do vary. I have mentioned some of the reasons here and other reasons in earlier blog posts. You can read about greasy hides or bug damage in our earlier posts about the importance of good hide preparation.
We haven’t changed our tune about good hide preparation as we believe that the way the hides are cared for and the timing in which they are prepped is still very important. We still believe that the abattoir, the farmer and the tanner all have a responsibility when it comes to making sure we get the best outcome each time, accepting that there will be variables outside of our control.
As for the iconic Icelandic sheepskin, I don’t believe there is much we can do to make the leather perfect every time. There are too many factors working against us. We would like to think these little imperfections underneath are inconsequential. No one looks at the leather for long. The gorgeous, flowing fiber is what makes Icelandic, and all sheepskin, shine.
