Longtime friends open Whiskey and Wool inside historic Trumbull County home
Stacey Banning and Kay Burr turned lifelong creative passions into their own shop in Kinsman, focusing on fiber arts, primitive decor and antiques.
“We’re both registered nurses by trade, and a couple of years ago, we were on a weekend away with our spouses just for some relaxation,” Banning said. “We’re talking about what we wanted to do when we grew up that didn’t involve working for somebody else. We wanted to be independently employed.”
Their spouses encouraged them to look into opening a shop, which was how Whiskey and Wool was created.
“The guys really like whiskey. We like wool,” Banning said. “We’re a primitive fiber arts shop, primarily focusing on rug hooking, where we use wool strips to follow a pattern and make beautiful rugs. Both of us really enjoy history. Both our homes are decorated very primitively, so when I think about primitive fiber arts, I knew I didn’t want a shop location that was sterile and looked new. I wanted it to fit the period. ”
Banning and Burr moved into historical property on Main Street that’s been in Kinsman since 1894.
“Stacey and I have both done cross-stitch since we were very young; our first introduction into the fiber arts was cross-stitching with our families,” Burr said. “We also will have some primitive decor and antiques because we are located in a historical home, so we want to keep the feel as much of that as possible.”
Looking ahead, the co-owners plan to host introductory classes, retreats, and sit-and-stitch sessions for community engagement, starting with punch needle.
“Punch needle is a little bit easier,” Burr said. “I call it the palette cleanser, you can get completed and get the satisfaction of the completion in a shorter amount of time coming together than you can with the rug hooking.”
Whiskey and Wool’s grand opened weekend of Oct. 18 followed by a ribbon cutting ceremony on Oct. 24 at 8424 Main St. in Kinsman.
“Sometimes we get a little blocked in our vision about how we want to maybe finish something or the color planning or something of that nature. When we come together, it’s a little bit easier to bounce ideas off of one another, then we spark even more creativity,” Banning said.
They worked with local business owners to complete the interior of the shop.
“The wood we used when we had our counter and shelves built is from a farm here in Kinsman, and it’s milled here in Kinsman and built here in Kinsman, and then stained by a local company, Stratton Creek, who does beautiful cabinetry,” Banning said. “A young lady painted our hand painted our logo on the window, and she’s local. The construction that’s been done has all been local businesses.”
