UCA alumni jabbed and dabbed their way through 2D felt art with Yarn Adventure Truck during the Alumni Association’s craft night.
“Fiber arts is all about the community,” Katy Turbeville, owner of Yarn Adventure Truck and UCA alum said. “You can work in a vacuum, obviously in doing fibers or whatever. But we all learn and engage with each other and the conversations that we have around these tables are way more important than anything else we actually physically make. So we’re learning, we’re chatting with each other, we’re networking, we’re giving ourselves an outlet for our frustrations and a mental health outlet as well.”
Past students and old friends sat down together during the March 28 event and were instructed by Turbeville on how to craft a felt art version of the UCA Bear logo.
“My goal for this particular event is to expose this particular community to different fiber arts and different options for doing crafty things with our hands while still engaging our minds in continuing the conversation,” Turbeville said.
Morgan Drayton, a UCA alum and the director of development for the College of Health and Behavioral Sciences, believes that alumni-focused events allow people to stay connected with their university, while others found the experience to be entirely new.
“It’s fun to have creative outlets and to meet new people. I don’t know anybody here tonight. I just came and it’s nice to get together with other people who are Bears who want to do something fun,” professor and research coordinator Lorrie George-Paschal said.
The 2D-felt art event also struck a nostalgic cord with George-Paschal.
“When I was here at UCA as an undergrad we had to do fiber arts because as occupational therapists we use art as therapy sometimes. So to help somebody gain strength we might use weaving or we might use macro may or different things like that,” George-Paschal said.
Katy and her husband, Dean Turbeville, began Yarn Truck Adventure in July 2021.
“We did our first class here as one of the big first events here in Buffalo Alumni [Hall] in the renovated space and we did a felted soap class, which is super fun,” Katy Turbeville said.
Since then, Yarn Truck Adventure has come to UCA five times.
“About once a semester, so we’ve come back and done different classes since then,” Katy Turbeville said.
Several of the crafts that Yarn Truck Adventure has brought to UCA include embroidery, pom-pom bears and amigurumi crocheted bears.
For Katy, Yarn Truck Adventure is a dream come true.
“I was an Early Childhood Education major when I was here, special ed emphasis, and I taught school for a long time, or three years, and then I ventured off into the business world and opened a yarn store,” Katy Turbeville said.
Once COVID hit the U.S., the Turbevilles spun their yarn business into a mobile venture.
Since then, Yarn Truck Adventure has been to numerous states including Texas, Minnesota, Virginia, Mississippi and more.
Because of the business’s connections throughout the nation, Yarn Truck Adventure often finds itself helping other small businesses.
“Our kits that are made for us for this particular event, are done by two ladies who have small businesses in Oklahoma that specialize in felting and so that is what they do all the time,” Katy Turbeville said. “We love supporting them and small businesses and bringing these people that come along with that. That’s my passion: small business, and specifically in the fibers world.”
The Alumni Association’s next event will be a photography seminar at 6 p.m. April 4 in Buffalo Alumni Hall, which will focus on how to safely take photos of an eclipse.
