`SHEPHERD' TENDS TO HER FLOCK

There are eight sheep, many of them pregnant, that provide fleece for Nellice Gillespie's weaving and spinning crafts. Each sheep can produce up to 14 pounds of fleece in the spring. The lamb was born last month and is named Bridgit.

This loom in Nellice Gillespie's home has eight harnesses, which means it can weave complex patterns. The room, in which classes are held, is stocked with yarn, some of it hand-woven and dyed.

Nellice Gillespie weavesa shawl made of wool, silk and mohair on the floor loom in her rural Gelen Allen home. The loom holds 320 p[ieces of yar and can make a variety of items up to 5 feet wide.

Nellice Gillespie of rural Glen Allen has names for the eight sheep in her flock -- Peter, Paula, Sweet Annie, Mimosa and Eve are some of them. A lamb born in February has been dubbed Bridgit.

Several of the sheep are pregnant, so there could be a dozen of the critters roaming the range this spring on Gillespie's 40-acre spread in Bollinger County.

The sheep not only keep the vegetation in the meadow closely clipped, and schmooze with a barn cat and a guard dog, they provide fleece for Gillespie's passions -- spinning and weaving.

Four of the sheep are cross breeds and four are pure-bred corriedales. The difference, says Gillespie, is in the kind of wool they produce.

"Some produce fine wool and some produce course. I use the finer wool for sweaters and the coarser wool for rugs," said Gillespie, who also teaches spinning and weaving, and calls her home-based business Shepherd in the Glen.

Born near Kansas City, Gillespie and her husband moved to rural Glen Allen in 1989. They bought 40 acres of woods, meadows and ponds and moved into a 90-year-old farm house.

Prior to their Missouri migration, they lived many years in Ohio where they taught at a university. Nellice Gillespie has a doctorate in sociology.

Although well versed in academics, she knew little of spinning and weaving, having taken but one crafts class in high school.

"I hadn't touched it (weaving) in all those decades, but in 1987 I had some time and bought my first loom and took my first lesson."

She joined the Central Ohio Weavers' Guild, took workshops and became the guild librarian, organizing a collection of books and journals related to the craft.

She currently belongs to the Mississippi Flyway Fiber Guild, Ozarks Foothills Spinners, St. Louis Weavers' Guild, Missouri Fiber Artists and Midwest Weaver's Association.

There are about a dozen such guilds in Missouri, and in March about 90 weavers from seven states met in Cape Girardeau for a weavers' convention at Southeast Missouri State University.

"We had a fashion show for our products, we attended workshops and put together an exhibit that will travel throughout the state for a year," said Gillespie, sitting down at a large loom that occupies most of a room that is also packed with books on crafts.

Gillespie brought two looms and a spinning wheel with her to Missouri. She is also a dealer for looms made in the U.S., Sweden and Finland. Prices range from about $1,500 to over $4,000.

Looms come in a variety of types to include table loom, floor loom, inkle loom, rigid heddle loom and tapestry loom. The more harnesses a loom has the more complex the weaving patterns can be.

Gillespie does what she calls "functional weaving" -- she makes products that can be put to use, things such as blankets, table linen, shawls, scarves, towels and rugs.

She works mainly with natural fibers like wool, silk, linen and cotton. When her sheep were sheared last spring, she garnered between 9 and 14 pounds of fleece (wool) from each animal.

"Fleece has a lot of lanolin in it," she said. "Before I spin it into yarn I wash it, but some people spin it as it is.

"If I have a 12-pound fleece, it weighs about 6 pounds after it's washed, because the lanolin, dirt and hay and even manure are removed."

After washing the fleece Gillespie "cards" it. Carding, she says, is like combing. She'll sometimes blend wool with other fibers during the spinning process. Wool might be blended with silk, mohair or angora.

The fibers are often dyed prior to spinning, and once spun, the yarn is stored in skeins that weigh about 4 ounces each. The skeins of yarn are then available for weaving, knitting or crocheting.

Weavers, spinners and knitters use many different winding tools and aids. Umbrella swifts hold different length skeins to be wound into balls or used to fill a weaving bobbin.

Ball winders and cone winders come in plastic or wood and clamp onto a table to provide a two-ended ball for weaving, knitting or plying on the spinning wheel.

Niddy-noddies are used to wind yarn into a skein for dyeing or storing. Skein winders stand on the floor and have windmill-like arms that quickly wind yarn off the spinning wheel bobbin into a skein.

A piece of equipment that helps organize work at the loom is a specially fitted canvas tray that holds shuttles, scissors and other necessities.

The warp and the weft are the two elements involved in weaving, says Gillespie. Warp yarn is attached at the rear and front of the loom, and weft yarn is woven between the strands from right to left. Foot pedals are involved and a wooden bar is pulled toward the weaver to tighten the weft yarn.

"It takes a lot of practice to get a loom set up for weaving," Gillespie said. "And there is always more to learn about weaving, you can always make it more complex."

The sheep at Shepherd in the Glen will be sheared soon and the spinning and weaving classes commence in mid-April.

"Everyone's invited to visit the studio, stroll through the woods or enjoy a cup of tea from the herb garden," said Gillespie, adding that brochures are available that give directions to her location.