Wife has two mink stoles that belonged to her mom and aunt. Wife already has a coat. What can two stoles be made into? Who can remanufacture the fur for her? Maybe hats for three granddaughters.

Mink stoles must have been worn by a high percentage of women back from the thirties through the sixties, because every auction and estate sale seems to have at least one for sale. Most sell for only a few dollars.

You could probably have hats or mittens made from a mink stole for your granddaughters.

Keith

Crocheted net shawls with small mink pompoms on each node and "knitted" shawls and hats made of thin mink fur strips wrapped around the base are one of the most popular ways to repurpose old mink garments here, especially if the fur is rubbed, sun-bleached, or if the leather is burnt. They are not difficult to make.

Here is an example of a combined pompom/wrapped strip technique:



and a typical mink strip beanie:

Before you do anything, pull back the lining in a couple of places and wet the leather. Then gently pull the leather in opposite directions. If it pulls apart the leather is "rotten" and it's not worth bothering with; it won't hold stitches.

Mark, such skins are not good for bigger garments, but they will still work for those projects with strips and pompoms as long as the leather is soft, and not hard and brittle, since all tension goes to the crocheted base. Such "rotten" skins start to behave like fabric due to shortened collagen fibrils, i.e. they rip easily from edges or punched holes but will remain pretty strong against blunt pressure.

For projects that don't need too much flexibility of the fur, such as rugs, you can also reinforce the leather by loosely glueing a nonstretch fabric base to the leather side and basting with 0.5-1 inch long stitches. I made a rug/couch throw from a very old sea otter skin this way and it's holding up pretty well.

wild things fur in wis. will make teddy bears I believe