DIY Moccasin Kit – Hide Uppers

(10 customer reviews)

$215.00$250.00 CAD

Make a pair of traditional winter moccasins that will keep your feet cozy all day long! The best footwear for the cold winter months of the Great White North. So great,  you will wonder how you wore anything but moccasins before.

Hide Upper Moccasin Kit: This is for a hide upper moccasin kit, which will perform just as well as our DIY Moccasin Kit – Canvas Uppers, but be easier to sew (little or no sewing machine required), and will have a simpler, more traditional design.  Both are great options, choose the aesthetic style you prefer.

NOTE: Ships in approximately 1-2 weeks. 

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Description

Get ready for the warmest, lightest, coziest pair of winter footwear you have ever worn. Handcrafted by you – there is simply no more satisfying way to travel in the winter than with a pair of moccasins you have made yourself!  Like all of our products, we have personally tested our moccasins on northern expeditions up to 40 days, and 250 km in length.

Our winter moccasin making kits include all materials and instructions required to make your own pair of custom, deerskin winter moccasins.  You supply socks and a few basic household tools.  These are the same instructions we provide at our moccasin making workshops, which we have used to help hundreds of people make moccasins in the past 10 years.

What’s the Difference?  Canvas & Hide Uppers.

Our hide upper moccasins and canvas moccasins are different takes on the same product.  Performance-wise both of these products will behave almost identically.  The split-grain hide and cotton canvas are both: lightweight, durable, breathable, nearly wind-proof, quick drying.  The choice comes down to one of aesthetics.

Hide (this kit): The split-skin moccasins are not sewn up the front – instead they are wrapped around your calf (with a generous overlap to seal out the snow), closed up with a deer antler button and then secured with the same wrap-around lace we use for the canvas.  Split-skin hides comes in a wide variety of colours, from earth-tones to fun and funky.  Inherently simpler than the canvas, and slightly easier to pull on, choose the hide uppers if you want a very simple style.  The hide uppers do not require hemming the way woven canvas does.  Hide upper moccasins were designed to be completed with minimal or no sewing machine use.

Canvas (link): Our canvas moccasins are sewn into a tube which you pull on over your calf (like a standard boot) and then secured with a wrap-around lace.  Being a pre-formed tube, the canvas is a better medium for decorative ribbon and fur trim.  The canvas can also be dyed any colour you wish.  Canvas uppers, being a woven fabric that requires hemmed edges, really are best completed with a sewing machine.

Included in these hide upper kits:

  • Thick felted wool boot liners;
  • Felted wool insoles;
  • Enough deerskin for the moccasin lowers, plus extra scraps to make thimbles, and use as a repair kit; If you are new to leather work, we suggest the 3oz hide as it will be easier to work than the heavier weights.
  • Hide uppers;
  • Decorative ribbon used to reinforce bottom edge of uppers;
  • Light cotton webbing for wrap-around ties (ends sealed with beeswax);
  • Deer antler buttons;
  • Artificial sinew;
  • 2 x “Glovers” or “triangular” needles;
  • Paper patterns;
  • Full-colour, bound instructional booklet;

MEN: Go up one or one and a half sizes for added wiggle room and insulation. For example if you are a size 10 you will choose a size 11, and if you are a size 10.5 shoe you will choose size 12 for your kit;

WOMEN: Choose your regular shoe size for sizing. For example if you are a size 8 women`s then choose size 8 men`s. This will allow enough room for added insulation and wiggle room. If you are a half size, women will round down.  For example a size 9.5W will choose a size 9M.

Decorative Trim

Please add into your order notes your top 3 choices of decorative trim. Our stock is always in flux and so it might not be possible to get your top choice. If you do not write in your order notes we will choose a beautiful trim for you! 

Add a Sole!

Adding our painted rubber sole to your moccasins will prolong the life of moccasins exponentially with yearly maintenance. See the “Video and Print instructions” tab for a full video of the soling process.

PLEASE NOTE: Colour of hides may vary from photos.

Additional information

Weight 1.7 kg
Dimensions 35 × 26 × 14 cm
Size (Men`s)

4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15

Soling Kit

No, Yes (+$35)

Video and Print Instructions

The Instructional Booklets for this craft item and others can be found, free of charge on our “Instructional Booklet” page under the “Info Hub” menu.

Soling Video:

10 reviews for DIY Moccasin Kit – Hide Uppers

  1. Scott Nadeau

    This kit is fantastic! I made mine 4 years ago and they still look great! The kit it fairly easy to make, but had a few questions, which they were very friendly and helpful in answering them. I did put the rubber soling kit, which does extend the life of the bottoms (especially if you walk a lot on concrete surfaces or streets).

  2. Dean Haley

    Finished my moccasins this morning. They are SOOO warm! Thank you for making these kits available to all of us.

  3. Mark

    I had a lot of fun making these!

  4. Sara

    Hi Kielyn,

    I just finished my moccasins – I had so much fun making them! Your YouTube videos were so very helpful. I watched them a few times before each step and it helped me tweak things here and there due to the thicker than usual bison hide.

    They turned out great! Thanks again for all your help. You haven’t heard the last of me :)

    -Sara

  5. LaVonne

    I purchased a Winter Moccasin Kit with hide uppers and the standard insulation package. (The amazingly soft wool socks are so comfy!) I can not be more pleased with my purchase.

    My stream of questions started before purchase. My foot is wide at a place that makes it impossible to purchase mass-produced shoes. Kielyn worked with me via email to help me determine the correct size of insulation kit to purchase. Her suggestion was right on! After I received my kit, she helped me to figure out what I needed to do to alter my boot liners and felted insoles. Again, that was accomplished through email and pictures. She quickly and expertly walked me through another step when I was having trouble getting my liners into the completed toes of my lowers.

    The instruction booklets sent with the kit were clearly written and had lots of helpful tips in them. Their videos on youtube starting with “Sewing Basics” https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLEZdFmHnUI and going on to the series on how to construct the winter moccasins https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7LX_3ZUHcq8 were also very helpful. The videos were the perfect mix of detailed tips and conciseness!

    I have had lots of experience sewing garments with a sewing machine. I do not usually like to sew by hand and struggle with neatness when I do need to sew by hand. I was a little nervous about sewing moccasins by hand! I happily discovered that working with this leather is addicting and the sewing by hand was not cumbersome! I am very pleased with my final product.

    Another pleasant surprise was how quickly the project came together! They arrived Monday noon (a week after I ordered them—that’s quick!) and I was finished by Wednesday afternoon. I had all four of my kids with me during that time and cooked meals too! :) If you have a dedicated several days, is should be very doable to get them done. By the way, my kids and I are excited about using up the scrap leather pieces that came as “freebies” with my kit in other projects!

    I purchased a pair of Tingleys from the local farm supply store since winter here tends to have lots of salt and heavy, wet, sloppy snow. I needed to get a size MUCH larger than I thought! The moccasins are not structured enough to prevent the Tingleys from squeezing my foot. Make sure the Tingleys are wide enough that they are not adding “pinch pressure” to your feet. I ordered a size Men’s 12 insulation kit for the width but need a size 2x Tingleys. (I probably should be 3x but didn’t want any more “floopy toe” on the Tingleys than I already had since my foot is only size 8.5 in length.).

    I was concerned that the standard insulation kit would be too warm here in temperate Virginia. While my moccasins keep my feet cozy and warm, I have not felt too warm and my feet have not been a sweaty mess when I take the moccasins off! The icing on the cake is that they are extremely comfortable—not an adjective I can usually apply to shoes!

    The customer service is top notch, the kit was well thought out, the packaging made my mail carrier and I smile and the finished product is so much fun to wear! I am looking forward to making up my summer moccasins kit!

  6. Ellis

    I ordered the canvas style winter moccasins, and as soon as I received them (which was only a short time) I got straight to work. With the included instructions, and the LOTN youtube videos, I now have a fantastic pair of mocs. Very light, comfortable, and just plain beautiful, If you haven’t already ordered, get on that. Believe me: If I can make a pair (and not become a blood donor at the same time) anyone can do it. You won’t regret it. This is truly becoming a lost art, and I am very thankful to Dave and Kielyn for providing this information and taking the time to make such detailed instructions. You guys are Awesome!!

  7. A. Currier

    I ordered a DIY mukluk kit with moose lowers and canvas uppers. Dave and Kielyn were great about answering my questions and the order arrived quickly. The instructions were easy to follow, and now I have a great pair of mukluks. I would absolutely order from Lure of the North again. Thanks guys!

  8. Brent

    Dave,
    These are warm, cozy and dry. I built the boar skin upper style. Check out my full review at:

    http://ridingprivateidaho.wordpress.com/2014/01/23/winter-moccasin-kit/

    Now, on to the snowshoes. Thanks for the quality kits.

    Brent

  9. Brian J.

    I received a Lure of the North snowshoe moccasin kit for Christmas and before New Year, I had my own pair of moccasins ready for the snow. The kit contained an abundant amount of quality material including leather and sinew (even for my size 13 feet) with lots left over for a repair kit. The instructions were clear and concise and, even though I am no seamstress, I had no problems following them and putting the moccasins together. I had looked around a bit on the internet with the idea of putting together my own materials but in the end found that I wasn’t going to save any money and it was going to be a whole lot more convenient to buy the kit. I would highly recommend this product. Brian

  10. Vanessa

    These are the best moccasins in the entire world. Hands down. I recently received a tube style moc kit from Lure and got quickly to work. The instructions are very detailed and keep in chronological order, so following along was not an issue at all. The instructions were also accompanied by several pictures to make it even clearer what the next step was. The pictures helped a lot! Throughout the instruction booklet there were also little nuggets of humor and good support. This made for an enjoyable process through the handful hours it took me to make them as a novice (and perfectionist) moccasin maker. I encourage everyone else to purchase a kit, take on the challenge and then do I what I did when I finished…showed them off to as many people as possible!

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