A Labor of Love
Joan Sheridan
Proprietor, Heritage Spinning & Weaving
For nearly 20 years I flirted with wanting
to spin and weave, always assuming it was too expensive to "get
into." Then, I saw an advertisement for the 1999
Mt. Bruce Sheep & Wool Festival and the rest, as they
say, is history. I signed up for beginning spinning and natural
dyeing classes. Mariah, then age 7, expressed an interest in
spinning, too, and enlisted in the kid's beginning spinning class.
We both took to it like ducks to water.
Mariah wasn't quite ready to spin then, but she loved the sheep
at Mt. Bruce Station and feeling their wool. Now, she is able
to spin, but prefers weaving. She dreams of having her own business,
so don't be surprised to see some of her products for sale at
the shop one of these days! |
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Mariah and her older brother,
Pete, both wearing my early hand-spun. Mariah's sweater is the
first one I ever made. It is from Elizabeth Zimmerman's Knitting
Without Tears and is made of white corriedale dyed with cochineal
and fall aster. Pete's is an original pattern, made by his Grandma
Sheridan (or Granny, as he calls her!). It is spun from Pewter,
a gray corriedale that resides at Mt. Bruce Station. It also
represents my first drum carding endeavor. Lots of lessons in
these two projects!
Hand-colored photograph by Maureen Electa Monte. |
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I spend some time just about every day
spinning, often several hours. I have immersed myself in spinning
literature and gone to many workshops. I was lucky to be able
to attend the Handweavers Guild of America's semi annual conference
and expo, Convergence 2000 and was really inspired by SOAR 2000,
the Spin-Off Annual Retreat held in North Carolina. I have found
the Internet to be an invaluable resource for learning and asking
questions. See our links page for some
of my top helpful sites.
Weaving didn't come as easy as spinning.
I taught myself from Deborah Chandler's Learning to Weave book
and have fumbled along from there. The school of hard knocks
style of learning to weave has paid off in one way: I've made
so many mistakes, it is easy to relate to the beginners in our
weaving classes. Been there, done that! I currently have three
looms at home. One is a 36" Union loom which has two harnesses
and is a real work horse for weaving rugs. The second is an OLD
Leclerc 36" 4 harness. The third one is still in pieces
and will hopefully assemble to be a 60"-ish Scandinavian-type
loom. Unfortunately, they mostly sit and look pretty, but Christmas
is coming so I've got several projects in mind to keep them (and
me) busy.
The store came into being because there
are no retail stores of this type anywhere nearby. At first I
thought I would wait until Mariah was older, then, the need to
open a shop became overwhelming and I started to pursue it in
earnest. Thanks to my employer (I'm still working as a graphic
designer for Classic
Printers), I sublease retail space in downtown Lake Orion
in the "back" of the print shop.
In August 2002 I added a new member to
the Heritage team. Mariah's Dad and my ex-husband became my ex-ex.
I tease him that we had to get married because I was running
out of places to put looms in my lake-side cottage! Mark's happy
to have us back because he says his house is now a home again.
He gets to do fun jobs at the shop -- last week he weighed and
marked all the new cones of cotton that came in and over the
weekend we moved a lot of new shelves . . .
With your help, Heritage Spinning &
Weaving will blossom and grow and become a resource for fiber
enthusiasts for a long time to come.
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