Yurt Alert

Wow, since the last time I wrote many things have happened. It’s been 18 months and just this weekend, while in NH for Labor Day, I went and picked up the last of the clean wool from the Fiber Dreams Mill. It’s amazing, and daunting. Over the last 2.75 YEARS, Jennifer has been faithfully cleaning the Icelandic and commercial Dorset wool I brought her. There were set back with a slight moth occupancy and of course, my wool was only some of the work that Jennifer was doing over this time period. But, at last, it’s clean, beautiful and ready to get Yurty. Also, my brother had a baby, Jack, who I dubbed Yurt Baby this weekend after throwing him in the pile of clean wool.

As my parents have been picking up a lot of the wool in installments, it has come to live in many of the far corners of our NH house. It has to be kept out of the way of prying mice and moths and not underfoot of my folks either. This is doable but when I went to organize it all in one place this weekend I discovered bags of batts in basically every closet, as per the above picture. Ultimately I got a bunch of it out of the house, but not nearly all of it. It’s so hidden that now I’d have to move furniture to get it out and that seemed a bit much for a photo opp. But hopefully the below photo gives everyone a sense of scale.

I’m all settled up with Jennifer (Thanks to all my Kickstarters) and I’m now trying to figure out the timing to get this going. I can’t start until I have the time to finish since I want to work with all of the felted cording while it’s still a bit damp….so I’m thinking next Summer I can plan for a month of straight felting and make this yurt dream a reality. Who’s with me?  Ahhh, anyway, it’s great to feel like there is progress again on this, I was starting to have self-doubt but I feel great now!

As I twiddle my thumbs (around my crochet hook of course) and wait for the snow to melt so I can get felting, I can’t help but respect some other really awesomely huge knitters / crocheters like Agata Olek who has been making waves lately with her sweater for the Wall Street Bull.

Even though the bull was a tough act to follow as her holiday gift to NYC, Agata recently knit herself an apartment, literally.

Agata did this as an installation at the Christopher Henry Gallery, but it’s still livable as Curbed points out! Stay tuned for more updates on my yurt once the wool’s available as well as an upcoming book the yurt’s featured in!

Another piece of yesterday’s adventure included a trip out to The Yarn Tree in Brooklyn with my mom to buy some more roving for her scarves. Turns out The Yarn Tree is now also selling meats that are locally sourced, additive/chemical free, etc. We got talking about meats as my mom and dad have begun getting theirs from local farms in New Hampshire — the most recent was a half a pig — and so are into this whole localvore movement. I turned around and spotted this sign on the wall and had to take a picture.

I think that that could sum up a portion of the Pokorny philosophy of life! Interestingly the owner of The Yarn Tree has a large scale project of her own with Yo Yo Ma’s Silk Road efforts — might not be a bad idea to tell him about the yurt!