Archive for October, 2009

Weekend Sheep
October 30, 2009

It’s Friday evening, the fundraising has hit 35% and it’s Halloween tomorrow — how does the day get better? The answer is with a peaceful photo of sheep on the water from Swans Island.p_yarns2

I got some scary news on the wool we have up in NH today — the mice have found it and since it’s so cold up there already they’re making themselves right at home — very soon I’ll be cleaning it out though and getting it to the mill so be warned, Mice! Your days of sleeping in my wool are almost over! Whenever the mice start to stress me out I just look at the photo and everything’s okay again.

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Sheep: Shear Joy
October 28, 2009

Today I’ve been getting a lot of yurt love, largely driven from a great write up on the project over at The Daily Green! As a way of keeping my karma in check I wanted to post about Heifer International, which, if yurt’s aren’t your donation of choice, allows you to “gift” animals to people in need — including sheep!

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As I’m working from Boston this week, my mom has been buzzing about doing great things for the yurt (I’m fairly certain she does this when I’m not here as she is basically the Yurt Whisperer). When I got home from a conference this afternoon she handed me the Heifer International catalog which states, “Warm in winter, cool in summer, waterproof and durable — wool is a valuable product that struggling families can use for clothing or sell for extra income…All over the world, Heifer partners are raising sheep to advance the cause against hunger and poverty.” For $120 you can give the gift of a sheep to someone who can care for it and benefit from it for years to come!

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350 — Yurt Power
October 26, 2009

As many of you are aware, this past Saturday was the International Day of Climate Action organized by the group 350.org. I’ve been familiar with the group for a little while as a friend of mine from high school, who lives in San Francisco, is involved as an organizer there and his Facebook keeps me informed!

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Saturday they posted photos that flooded in from around the world of people holding up 350 signs — this one came in from the town of Bulam in Mongolia — they tied the 350 movement to their yurts, literally! Congrats to the 350 crew!

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Sheep Around the World!
October 20, 2009

And yurts too I should say! I feel like there’s a song in there somewhere…anyways, since the launch of this project I’ve been getting sent photos from friends and strangers around the world of awesome sheep and yurts that I wanted to share!

The above is from Mt. Vernon — they’re George Washington’s sheep!

And then they promptly ran away from my friend Courtney!

The above is a yurt from the Dutchess County Wool and Sheep Festival from Molly Made!

One of my clients sent me this phone pic from his business trip to Australia — look at that beautiful bushy merino! HUGE! Thanks everyone — keep them coming!!!

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Make New Friends…
October 20, 2009

…but keep the old! That was the favorite saying at my elementary school in Back Bay, The Learning Project. From there I went to BB&N and both schools have been so supportive of the yurt I had to post a special thanks!

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BB&N has posted the Yurt in their Alumni News section — woohoo! Hopefully some of my old school mates will get on board!

The LP not only Facebook’ed and Twitter’ed the yurt project but my elementary school principal, Michael McCord also donated to the cause on Kickstarter!

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It makes me realize that the network I’ve built up over time is so amazingly supportive even 13 years later for the LP! What a great way to continue their original beliefs of community and education and teamwork! Thanks everyone!

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Fall Wooliness
October 20, 2009

This weekend in New York City was freezing and rainy! I had old study abroad friends staying with me from DC so we were able to stay warm in my little apartment but outside and at Crafts in Chelsea all I could think about was WOOL!

The picture above is from New Hampshire of the wool again — it just looked so Fall-y with the bush turning colors in the background — I had to share!

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20% Complete
October 19, 2009

I’m so thrilled to report that with everyone’s extreme generosity we’ve already raised over $1,100 for the yurt! This puts us at just over 20% funded on Kickstarter — if we keep this up we’ll be able to raise more than enough and the yurt will be even more awesome than I imagined!

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So team, BIG gold star — please please continue to spread the yurt love!

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Adyurtising
October 18, 2009

I’ve been getting some requests, especially while at Crafts in Chelsea yesterday for Yurt-related collateral. Sticker, bags, the usual! So I went on Zazzle this morning and have made a few products, bumper stickers and regular stickers so far, so that people can, if they so choose, spread the love of the yurt.

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I’ve posted the pictures of them here and they can be purchased here. If you’d prefer I order them and send them to you just let me know — the more yurt love the better!

Sticker

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The Beginnings…
October 16, 2009

I know you all have been greatly anticipating pictures of the first 200 pounds of wool and they’re finally here! The money I’m raising through Kickstarter currently is to pay for all of the wool, processing it will need to go through to become feltable fleece, and additional materials.

As you can see, I already owe my parents back for a serious amount of raw wool! I could hardly drag one of those 75 lb bags out of the barn and onto the green! Wild wool!

Above is what the bags looked like up close — those are all the fleeces from the Barlett’s and there are a few black sheep in the bunch. We started skirting the fleece only to realize that skirting wool might be one thing you can’t yet learn on YouTube. Before we failed we stopped and are going to get a lesson in skirting before we start up again!

Reclining on the wool! It was about 45 degrees — I wish the wool had already been made into a sweater house! Be glad you weren’t there — it didn’t smell good.

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This Weekend in Wool
October 14, 2009

As promised here are some pics from this weekends wool extravaganza! Many are from the NH Wool Arts Tour where we stopped at many different farms including alpaca farms.

The alpaca were captivated by the horse and buggy rolling by — clearly these camels were concerned by the size of the horses!

Even though it was cold and windy these ladies had set up their wool shops on the farm property to appeal to the knitters and crocheters among us — which was basically everyone.

This angora rabbit was getting a “haircut” when we saw it — it’s owner, who has six rabbits, was pulling off its extra fluff and spinning it right there into yarn! They kept each other warm.

Fall in NH — plenty of pumpkins!

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