Dr. MRO. Literary Historian. Public scholar, activist & small biz owner who dyes yarn inspired by Black/brwn premodern figures.
WOC: product of Black & brown love. Gif lover. Racist magnet. Abolitionist. Not Eddie Murphy. She/hers
www.RepublicOfYarnia.com
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
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I'm behind and I'm also under the weather bc the sun refuses to shine here but I promised you all a draw for customer appreciation. Congrats to our Yarnian who won a free freaking skein! Thank you all for sharing, caring & creativity. Another draw in a couple of months!!
This is a grey w/ memory in it. A grey w/ direction. I made this to go especially well w/ suri silk haze. The halo catches the blush & lavender notes and lifts them just enough to create that pearly, iridescent effect. The heart detail in one of the pics shows it off well.
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For #BlackHistoryMonth, this image reminds us that Black history is also in medieval pilgrimage, devotion, and endurance. Black people traveled. Black people journeyed. Black people were seen and recorded along the road. 🧶
#yarnsky
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as a cool silver-platinum, but look longer & the surface begins to shift. Soft violet & pink glazing sits just over the grey, catching the light differently as the yarn moves. The effect is intentional: restrained, luminous, almost iridescent.
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figures hovering at the edges of history, but participants within it. Pilgrimage, after all, was one of the great engines of movement in the medieval world, & Black travelers are part of that story.
The colorway itself "Platinum Pilgrim" mirrors this presence. At first glance, the base reads
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encounters, & landscapes stretching far beyond a narrow European world. This is not fantasy or allegory: it is observation.
Black pilgrims appear throughout medieval & early modern visual culture moving through sacred landscapes, undertaking devotion, labor, & travel. They're not marginal
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#BHM Day 15: Black Pilgrims on the Road 🧶
The figure at the heart of this colorway is a Black knight shown mid-journey, riding with purpose rather than spectacle. He appears in the late-15th-cent travel account of Arnold von Harff’s travel account, a record of pilgrimage routes,
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#yarnsky
Today is the last day to get your hands on Feb's monthly yarn or roving colorway: Petals & Presence. The story of our figure of inspiration was one I really enjoyed researching bc she was a little outside my area of expertise. Twas a win win bc I learned so much along the way too! 🧶
#yarnsky
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
Yup, Yarnia has both a yarn club & a roving club. Some fiber lovers have joined both & now I have to figure out how to consolidate these for some of you bc that was unexpected. I should never ever underestimate fiber lovers. I have learned my lesson. 🧶
Anyway next month's sneak peek coming soon!
ALT: a cartoon of a tomato with the words join us on it
media.tenor.com
#BHM Day 14: Warmed Earth Embrace 🧶
This is a new colorway & perfect to talk abt today as it's rooted in tenderness, freedom, & quiet intimacy. The colorway draws inspiration from Miguel Ângelo Lupi's 1879 painting depicting a formerly enslaved Black couple seated closely together.
#yarnsky
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Today I learned that @isasaxonists.bsky.social offers YARN SUBSCRIPTIONS and seriously as soon as I have room in my budget I'm going to sign up!
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
Discover the monthly yarn subscription by Republic of Yarnia. Enjoy luxury yarn inspired by history, delivered monthly to your door.
#BHM Day 13: Tranquil Teal 🧶
This boy appears in the background of a 17th-cent French painting by François Dagobert Jouvenet, positioned behind a named European figure. The boy is left unnamed himself. This young boy w/ dark skin wears a white turban & a silver collar, & holds a green
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#yarnsky
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 12: Earth and Sky Bearer🧶
What does it tell us when a Black figure appears not as an exception, but as part of the everyday visual world?
This colorway is grounded in a late 15th-cent. image from Le Kalendrier des bergers (The Shepherds’ Calendar, 1493), a popular
#yarnsky #yarnmarket
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Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
Day 11: Early Modern Black Voyagers🧶
This colorway is inspired by an anonymous Black nobleman depicted in "Merchant Receiving a Moor in the Harbour," a Dutch painting by Nicolaes Berchem (1620–1683), c. 1650. The term “Moor” in premodern Europe was not a fixed or singular identity: it
#yarnsky
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Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
Day 10: Black Warriors in the East 🧶
The Darabname reminds us that the medieval & early modern world was vast, interconnected, & vividly imagined far beyond Europe. Produced in Mughal India in the late sixteenth century, this illustrated epic re-tells Persian heroic history
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Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 9: Black Friars 🧶
Not all Black figures in medieval European art are symbolic, allegorical, or exoticized. Some are simply there bc Black people were there.
In the image from Les Très Riches Heures du duc de Berry (c. 1416), 3 Black monks appear in a scene of
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#yarnsky #yarnmarket
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 8: Diego Bemba 🧶
This colorway turns to a figure whose presence in the historical record is both rare & quietly powerful: Diego Bemba, a Kongolese aristocrat from Soyo (in what is now the DRC & Angola), painted in the mid-17th century.
It is exceptionally uncommon to know the
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#yarnsky
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 7: Ira Aldridge 🧶
Ira Aldridge (1807–1867) was a groundbreaking Black Shakespearean actor whose career reshaped European stages in the 19th century. Born in New York, Aldridge was barred from most theatrical opportunities in the US by racist laws & customs
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#yarnsky #handdyedyarn
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 6: Black Bohemian Figure 🧶
This colorway is inspired by a Black figure depicted in an early 15th-cent Bohemian astrological ms from the court of King Wenceslaus IV. The figure is not identified as a specific historical person, but their presence is nonetheless meaningful.
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#yarnsky
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 5: Portrait of a Young Woman 🧶
Today’s colorway is inspired by a late 18th-cent "Portrait of a Young Woman." The sitter’s name & life remain undocumented, as is often the case for Black sitters in 18th-century European portraiture. What survives instead her presence, rendered
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#yarnsky
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 4: Maternal Rainforest
This is a brand new colorway in time for #BlackHistoryMonth.
It's inspired by a 17th-century allegorical image of a Black woman representing the continent of Africa, part of a series of 4 baroque murals (in Prague) personifying the known continents
🧶#yarnsky
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Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 3: Young Lady with the Orange Blossom (1722/23)
Titled "Portrait of a Lady Holding an Orange Blossom," the early 18th cent. painting offers a rare & striking image of a Black woman rendered with dignity, softness, & presence. The sitter is depicted with a lighter complexion, 🧶
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#yarnsky
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
Day 2: John Blanke 🧶
John Blanke was a Black trumpeter at the Tudor court, best known from the Westminster Tournament Roll of 1511, commissioned during the reign of Henry VIII. Blanke appears twice in the ms & is shown wearing the same livery
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#BHM #yarnsky #yarnmarket #blackhistorymonth
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
#BHM Day 1: "Alchitrof, the Ethiopian Emperor.” 🧶
Alchitrof is said to have ruled in the 16th-cent & made contact w/ the Portuguese. Records state that he was known for his bravery & his fight against the Portuguese invasion of his territory.
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#yarnsky #blackhistory #handdyedyarn
Dr.MRO/ Axel Folio
It's #BlackHistoryMonth so you know what time it is? Time for a month long thread/post on a different figure and their colorway each day. Stay tuned, learn lots, embrace history, and happy crafting! 🧶
#yarnsky #yarnmarket #handdyedyarn
