Contemporary wool art and wearables shaped by ancient memory and unseen threads.
The Wool Remembers What Love Could Not Save.
Wool is an ancient material. It has been used for warmth, protection, ritual, and survival for thousands of years.I work with wool because it connects me to my ancestors. Wool holds memory.
Through wet-felting, needle-felting, freeform crochet, and hand-dyed fibers, I create sculptural and wearable pieces that carry story, emotion, and transformation.
My work exists at the intersection of craft and ritual. The techniques that I use are slow, intentional, and all done by hand.
Each piece is formed through pressure, water, movement, and time. The process itself mirrors the way we are shaped by our experience. My work is about transformation.
Kristi Yapp -
Wool Alchemist
All of my work is made from wool gathered from local farms in Indiana.
I wash it.
I pick it.
I dye it.
I felt it.
The wool is layered, agitated, and transformed into hats, ornaments, and sculptural fiber forms. I work intuitively, allowing the material to guide the final shape, surface, and presence of each piece.
No two works are ever the same.
Wool remembers what love could not save.
It remembers warmth.
It remembers pressure.
It remembers resilience.
My work is not decorative. It is meant to be held, worn, and lived with. I create objects that acknowledge loss, endurance, and the quiet strength required to continue.
These pieces are offerings.
They are markers of passage.
They are made for people who understand that beauty and sorrow often exist together
Here you will find:
Handmade felted hats
Sculptural fiber art
Wool ornaments and ritual objects
One-of-a-kind wearable pieces
Each work is made slowly, by hand, with intention.
Freeform Crochet
Wearable Art Hats
I rise from lineage and intention.
I am protection shaped by patience, strength shaped by care.
My form recalls the helmets of early Mongolian warriors, built for war, survival, leadership, and continuity. Beneath my lattice, color carries memory. Wool remembers shelter, ritual, and the quiet magic practiced by nomadic tribes more than eight thousand years ago.
I hold the balance between force and restraint.
Between guardianship and power.
I exist to conquer.
I exist to endure.
Each of these sculptural headpieces is a one of a kind original created by fiber artist Kristi Yapp. Built layer by layer over a sculptural form, every piece takes approximately 50 to 75 hours of focused crochet work. The technique used to create these works was developed in 2022 during a period of profound personal loss, becoming both a method of construction and a path of transformation.
No patterns are used. Each headpiece emerges slowly from the fiber itself, guided by intuition, structure, and the natural movement of yarn. The result is wearable fiber art that cannot be duplicated.
am the garden that remembers.
Beneath a sky of color, the sun opens at the center of vision. I see without judgment. I witness without fear. I hold the quiet knowing that life grows in cycles, not in lines.
Around me bloom the flowers of becoming. Each petal holds time, patience, and care. Each ring marks connection. Each stitch anchors memory into form.
Grass rises at my edge, soft but persistent. Growth does not shout. It unfolds.
I am Mother’s Garden. I am life in motion. I am nature worn close.
I carry the landscape of a thinking mind.
Color moves through me in ripples, like thoughts traveling through the cortex. Ideas, emotions, questions, and reactions pass through my surface in layered waves. Some move freely. Others collide and twist into complex patterns.
Within my folds sit the pale spiral forms. Encapsulated memories. The thoughts the mind sealed away and tried to forget.
But nothing placed inside the mind disappears.
Hidden memories still influence the current. They block the flow, bend perception, and quietly shape how truth is seen.
I rest upon the head like a living map of thought. A reminder that the mind holds both darkness and light, and that clarity begins when we are willing to face both.
Spirit Art
These works are created using ancient fiber techniques including wet felting, needle felting, and crochet. Each piece is built slowly by hand, allowing the materials to guide the form as it emerges. Through this process the work begins to take on presence, character, and meaning.
Spirit Art is not decorative work made to follow trends. These pieces are created as symbolic objects that carry emotion, memory, and intention. Wool, fiber, and form become a language through which stories, archetypes, and unseen forces are expressed.
I am bound by what I loved.
My arms are stretched wide, not in surrender, but in exposure — to memory, to loss, to the weight of what cannot be undone.
The heart that crowns me is no longer only mine. It presses into my thoughts, overtakes my mind, rewrites my body. From it spill the bandages meant to heal, yet they bind me instead. I cannot move. I cannot turn away. Grief has fixed me here.
Once, I was soft. Once, I was open. Now I am wrapped, layered, restrained by sorrow that has become my shelter and my weapon both. I stand suspended between love and paralysis, carrying the cost of devotion long after the body learns it must survive
“Grief became my identity.
My shelter.
My shield.
My sword.”
“Terrified to let go,
to lose you once again.”
This piece is accompanied by two full poems written during its creation, available in the blog section of my website
I was born from loose wool — washed, picked, dyed, and shaped by hand — and brought into being over four long, snow-covered days. I am solid wool, no wire or armature, only the strength that comes from being formed with focus and intention.
I carry my colors like memories: blues for the truths I’ve learned, violets for the mysteries I’ve lived through, warm reds for the love I still hold. I have known hardship, more than most would believe. And because of that, I no longer entertain anything that isn’t real.
If you come to me with honesty and kindness, I will be loyal to you forever. My compassion is deep, but so is my resolve. I am a guardian born in a storm — a witness, a survivor, and a reminder that softness and strength are never opposites.
I was once a sunflower.
I stood in clean water, breathed fresh air, and rooted myself in rich soil. I turned my face freely toward the sun.
That was a long time ago.
As the cities spread and the land hardened, I changed. My color faded. My leaves darkened. The light in my eyes grew quiet and forlorn. Deep red lines formed across my body, marks of apathy and destruction I did not deserve.
I remember what the world once was.
Before.
I remain. I witness. I hold memory. Even in the darkest times, I refuse to disappear.
I am not sad for myself.
I am sad for you.
I see the evil that exists in the world.
I see the fear.
The confusion.
The grief that goes unnamed and unattended to.
When we do not allow ourselves to feel, our spirit whithers.
I tried to speak. I tried to warn. I tried to help those whom I loved.
I was ignored.
Shunned.
Isolated.
Exiled.
Now, I sit quietly.
I watch.
The blue and red lines that run down my face are my tears and my blood. They are my grief and my sacrifice intertwined. I would have given my life for you, but you pushed me away.
There is nothing left for me to do.
I watch.
I wait.
I pray.
I stand where innocence ended.
My arm wraps around the tree, but the tree has already begun to grow through me. What once felt like shelter has become structure. What once held me now defines me.
I wear yellow—the color of childhood, warmth, and belief—but my hair has already turned gray. Time did not pass gently here. My face is barked over, not to hide, but because some truths cannot be carried openly without breaking the body that holds them.
Above me coils the snake. He does not rush. He never has to. Temptation does not pursue—it waits. The apple hangs from my own branch-like fingers now, no longer something offered from outside, but something I carry within myself.
I hold my broken heart out in front of me like a shield. It does not protect me from what has already happened. It protects me from forgetting. This is the moment after choice, after belief, after the door quietly closed.
I wrote a poetic essay to accompany “No Escape” in April, 2025. It is available in the blog section
I am not delicate.
I did not shatter quietly.
I took the blows, again and again, and stayed standing.
My scars are visible because I earned them.
The blood you see is not weakness. It is proof that I lived, fought, and refused to disappear.
I am layered like stone, hardened by impact, yet inside me live colors you cannot see at first glance. I have experienced trauma, but also moments of joy and light, held safely beneath my armor.
I am the heart that survived.
I watch as you look away.
I warm what remains.
I am eye and sun,
voice and silence.
My fractures spread
where attention thins.
I am still soft.
I am still waiting.
I was formed from stillness.
I stand fixed within a heart of fire, unable to move though time moves endlessly around me. The sun rises, the moon turns, trees grow and seasons change, yet I remain rooted in the moment that broke me. My body has become rigid and unmoving, suspended between past and present.
Across my chest rests the wound that defines me. A broken heart that endures. Above, a single crystallized tear marks grief that has hardened rather than flowed. I do not release it. I carry it.
Around me, life continues without pause. Light returns. Darkness falls. Growth persists. The world does not wait for healing.
I am the memory that holds a person in place. The echo of pain that becomes identity. Yet even within stillness, the possibility of movement remains.
The
Broken-heart
Series
The Broken-Heart Series is a body of sculptural fiber work exploring love, loss, grief, and the marks that remain after life changes us. Each piece is created using hand techniques such as wet felting, needle felting, crochet, and mixed materials.
Cracks, fractures, stitching, and layered textures reflect the ways the human heart carries memory. These forms hold the experience of deep love, profound loss, and transformation.
Each piece in the Broken-Heart Series is a one of a kind original created by me, Kristi Yapp.
Felted Wool Hats
These hats are created using the ancient technique of wet felting. Wool fiber is layered by hand and worked with water, soap, and pressure until the fibers lock together and form a strong, seamless textile. Each hat is shaped and refined through a slow process that allows the material to develop its own character.
Wool felt has been used for clothing and protection for thousands of years. It is warm, breathable, water resistant, and remarkably durable. Every hat in this collection is formed individually by hand, giving each piece its own shape, texture, and presence.
Each hat is a one of a kind original created by me, Kristi Yapp.
I was born from four dense layers of natural grey wool—pressed, sculpted, and coaxed into form until I became both armor and offering. My brim is wide and steady, my crown tall and unwavering, yet across my front runs a web of fractures and a heart split in two. Do not mistake these lines for weakness. They are maps of survival.
I carry a quiet prayer inside my fibers: that whoever wears me will feel the solidity of my weight, the steadiness of my shape, and the permission to hold their own brokenness with dignity.
Pictured is Kaylen, the mysterious elf whose art inspired my design.
Within me there is ancient forest magic, strength, and haunting beauty. Wrap yourself in me, and I will guard your softness while honoring every crack that shaped you.
I sit where questions gather.
I remain open.
I do not presume to know.
I watch as answers unfold.
Endlessly, I seek truth.
I am Earth Bloom.
I began as brown fiber. I am a mixture of alpaca and Icelandic wool, compressed into a strong, paper-like fabric. My form is steady, protective, and enduring.
From that stillness, I bloom. Pink and orange fibers burst upward in curls and locks, celebrating color, life, and creative force. I am proof that beauty does not float above the earth. It grows from it.
I sit just above the ear.
Close enough to listen.
Loose enough to let your thoughts roam.
My spirals move slowly,
dark meeting light,
circling without urgency.
I do not rush clarity.
I hold depth until you are ready for it.
Fiber Art Workshops
Workshops are hands-on, skill-based classes rooted in traditional fiber techniques. Whether you are new to wool or refining your craft, each session focuses on practical instruction, material knowledge, and the quiet discipline of making. Classes are small, process-focused, and designed to build confidence through doing.
Upcoming Events
About The Artist
In 2022, my son was killed by fentanyl poisoning while my mother was dying of pancreatic cancer. My life was ruptures in ways language could not hold. Before that year, I had been a preschool teacher for three decades.
After that year, I fell apart.
While living inside profound grief and severe PTSD, art entered my life. I poured my emotions into creation. Becoming an artist was not a choice but a consequence. In the years since, sorrow taught me how to enchant wool—one of humanity’s oldest materials of survival. Through this devotion, I became an alchemist: transformed, undeniable, made stranger and stronger.
Art saved me.
Wool saved me.
God saved me, by placing me on this path.
Today, I am a fiber artist and wool alchemist living in rural Rensselaer, Indiana. My work begins with raw wool sourced from local farms, which I wash, pick, and dye by hand. Through traditional felting and fiber techniques, I create sculptural and wearable forms that explore grief, memory, ancestry, and transformation.
Wool is one of humanity’s most ancient materials. For me, it becomes both subject and medium, carrying stories of survival, tenderness, and resilience. My work bridges personal loss with collective memory, inviting viewers to slow down, touch something timeless, and remember what cannot be undone.
On This Day, Last Year
On Grief, Writing, and Wool
My son died on September 21, 2022.
My mother died less than three months later, on December 13, 2022.
Nothing in my life had prepared me for losing them.
In the years before that, I lived a life built around long-term security. I had a salary, an office, benefits, and a 401(k). I believed I was safe. Looking back, I can see that I was living inside a shell. I was afraid of risk. I was afraid of life without a safety net. I was grinding my wheels but never moving.
Then 2022 happened.
I lost my job. My mother became ill. I cared for her. My son died. Then my mother died.
On June 5, 2023, I began writing what would eventually become a book, but I did not know it at the time. I was in a state of profound grief and post-traumatic stress. I could not explain my behavior, not even to myself. It felt as if there were a physical barrier in my throat and in my heart. I could not speak about what had happened. Or sometimes, I spoke about it too much.
Exactly one year after I first took my mother to the emergency room for what seemed like a simple pain in her groin, I began publicly writing the story of those six months on Facebook. Every morning before dawn, I got out of bed and wrote what had happened the year before. Then I released it into the world.
I wrote the truth.
I wanted people to know what I had lived through. I wanted them to understand why I could not talk, why I could not function, why I seemed to be unraveling.
I wrote about the suffering.
It is not easy to read. It is not for the faint of heart.
In 2024, I rewrote the entire story publicly on Substack. More than a thousand strangers from around the world have read it. I do not know most of their names. I have never met them. The internet is a strange place. Still, people wrote to me. They recognized themselves in my words.
I wrote the story, edited it, and then edited it again until I could not take it anymore. The book is absolutely heartbreaking. It is also beautiful. It is a story of compassion, strength, faith, and love.
When I stopped writing, I put all of my energy into my art.
I woke up every morning before dawn and created for hours. I studied wool. I met farmers, artists, weavers, spinners, and quilters. I found community. I found myself inside a magical, colorful world where I finally felt that I belonged.
The book I wrote about my mother and the six months of her turbo cancer is the greatest achievement of my life. Because I have written it, I am a success. That can never be taken away from me.
I wrote it to remember.
I wrote it to explain.
I wrote it to be understood.
I wrote it because I was angry.
I wrote it because I was hurt.
I wrote it because my heart was broken.
My heart is still broken.
I have learned that I am strong enough to carry it.
The full story remains available on Substack, free for anyone who needs it. I am currently editing the pages and repairing broken links so the work can continue to be read without interruption.
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Contact me if you have question or compliment about a hat, sculpture, workshop, or custom order.
I respond to messages within 1–2 days.
You may also follow my work on social media for updates, new pieces, and behind-the-scenes photos
Frequently asked Questions
Do you make everything by hand?
Yes. Every piece begins as raw wool that I wash, pick, and dye before felting it into shape. I felt by hand using traditional techniques.
Where does the wool come from?
Local Indiana farms. I source directly from small flocks.
Are the hats durable?
Yes. My felted hats are thick, structural, and designed to hold their shape for years.
Can I request a custom piece?
You can message me through the contact page to discuss custom work.
Do you teach workshops?
Yes, I teach felting and fiber art classes in Indiana. Dates are posted on the Workshops page.
How do I care for my wool hat?
Spot clean with cool water and let air dry. Felted wool naturally resists dirt and moisture