With the leather scraps and cord, there is no way to convert these into actual leather therefore rendering it useless. I have tried various ways but can find no online help to get this to work. Even through JEI and EMI it shows no way to convert this to functional leather for any of the crafting recipes. So, now I can't craft with leather.

I forgot to mention that using the shears and skinning knife on the hide do not produce anything other than leather scraps too.