Normally on Fridays, I spend all day doing fiber art of some variety and then post about what I did in the evening. But yesterday, that wasn’t the case. We had nearly a foot of snow here on Thursday and hubby’s “back is out” so he couldn’t do the usually plowing. So I ended up spending 3 1/2 hours on Friday morning (after having a lovely mammogram), shoveling and snow blowing. It was “great” fun. Then somehow, I had signed us up to participate in the “Mini Maker Faire” at the community college on Saturday to set up the yurt and demonstrate felting. So I spent the rest of Friday, getting all the yurt felt rolled up and packed as well as other felted items for demo. The we packed up all this stuff – 1 pick up truck and 2 SUV’s filled to the brim – and taking it over to the college Friday evening.
Here is a bad photo of the pile of stuff we brought in. You can see hubby in the background in a sort of bent over position. I didn’t let him lift anything and he got a little grumpy.
Here’s a better photo of some of the stuff we brought. This is about half of it.
Here’s the yurt being set up with the ladder in the middle holding the center piece where the roof poles fit in.
Here is Paula helping to fit the poles in. She was very brave and climbed up on the ladder.
Here it is before we started adding the felt covering. I was planning on taking lots more photos but then the people started pouring into the faire. We got the yurt covered and then we started doing felting in a bag demos. I think we probably had 80-100 kids felt a “flower” in a bag. We had an assembly line going and just kept felting and felting and felting. Everyone loved the yurt and I can’t believe how many people don’t even know what wool is. Most often we heard “where does wool come from?” – I tell them a sheep and they looked at me like I had two heads. One lady was very disgruntled because “just think how many sheep were killed to make this yurt”. Paula explained that no sheep were killed, they were just sheared to harvest the wool. The lady didn’t believe her. But we did teach tons of people how to felt and showed them a variety of projects that can be made from felt. The faire lasted 5 hours and I would estimate 400-500 people came through in that time. Then we had to take the yurt down, pack it all back up and haul it home. Thanks Paula for all your help – I really appreciated it. Next time I mention that I think it would be a good idea to do this again, shoot me.
Ruth Lane Art 
Wow what a big job and so busy. some people just don’t want to believe what you tell them, they want to be outraged. I am sure have turned lots of people onto wool with this demo.
It was a big job. I guess it would have made more sense to do this in a weekend venue so the yurt stayed up for more than 5 hours. But it was good to educate so many people.
Got to hand it to you–that exhibition took courage and hard work. But I think the young fellers probably had a pretty good time and learned something useful along the way.
Thanks Cathy – the kids loved it and hopefully, more people know about wool.
Wow what a day! It’s amazing in this day and age people don’t know where wool comes from. I’m a city girl and knew that as a kid. What does that say about our educational system?
I hope hubby recovers soon. It’s great Paula was able to help out. That was quite an undertaking I hope the community appreciates it. I’m sure you made a difference to a lot of people today. I’m amazed at the whole yurt process. I can’t imagine how impressive it is in person! Well done Ruth! And yes, next time you mention it we’ll remind you. Not that it will change anything. 🙂
It is amazing to me that people are so uneducated. One lady wanted to know if we were using dryer lint. 🙂 Everyone was very complimentary of the yurt and were impressed with the amount of work involved in making it.
I need a rest just from reading what you did! I can’t believe people think sheep are killed for their wool, though it probably never occurs to them about real sheepskin rugs. I’m glad all the kids had fun felting and learnt something.
I hope you have your feet up today! 🙂
I wasn’t there when the lady was talking about killing sheep and another lady from another booth did say “do you see any pelts?” But that didn’t penetrate the thick skull either. The kids had a blast and we had them lined up. I am doing laundry and putting up the yurt felt today but yes, I slept in at least.
Wow, that’s exhausting! I can’t believe that people don’t even know where wool comes from. What the hell are we teaching in school now?
It is amazing, isn’t it? I have no idea but sheep = wool is certainly not on the curriculum.
Well done Ruth, it looks like you have converted the next generation of feltmakers. The mind boggles that anyone could not know where wool comes from. It’s not unlike the kids who think milk comes from the supermarket, they’re part of the way there…
Thanks Teri – the kids really enjoyed it and many said “wow, that’s like magic”. Hopefully, I have spread the word a little.
Apart from the yurt frame your photos didn’t show, but it sounds like a very busy time. I’m sure they all had great fun and at least some people will realise that harvesting wool is different to getting their lamb chops. 🙂
Judith – Not sure why you can’t see the photos. They are fine on my computer. But there wasn’t really much to see besides the yurt frame because I didn’t have time to take photos. I do hope a few people learned something about wool and felt 🙂
Not surprised you’re exhausted! Sounds like the kids had a great time, and hope that some people there at least appreciated how much work it took to produce that yurt! Also hope hubby’s back is better.
The kids did have a good time and there were some people who really appreciated the work involved. But others… Hubby’s back is slowly improving. Thanks!
Who needs a gym membership? Not you!
Certainly not! Now I’m shoveling snow every day for exercise. 🙂