My passion for Kyrgyz yurts led me to felt and wool in June 2022. Swiss clients near Lucerne had insulated their yurt platform with sheep’s wool from local farmers, and afterwards they offered me three bags of what was left. I barely knew what one could do with raw wool — luckily, or I might have composted it and forgotten the whole idea.
Instead I spent weeks washing, drying, beating and carding it, learning as I went. As a child I had helped my aunts and grandmothers make carpets, and those memories carried me through. One foggy morning, waiting for a bus, I suddenly remembered my late grandmother — a craftswoman who wore almost only her own clothes — and how much I wished we could have felted together. I burst into tears at the stop.
Step by step, felting became part of my life alongside my architecture practice in Lausanne — a studio, a felting table, and workshops where I share what I have learned.