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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!

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.

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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Heritage Spinning & Weaving
47 E. Flint Street - Lake Orion, MI USA 48362
Phone 248/693-3690
info@heritagespinning.com
We accept Visa and Mastercard