June - Inside the HDS Handbag
May just slipped by with so many things happening.
Spring brings yard work and the beginning of the outdoor Art Fair season.
I was honored to be juried into the Marion Festival of Arts in Marion, Iowa.
I dusted off my outdoor tent and all the things needed to complete my booth.
Canopy, walls, rug, weights, desk and chairs.
It was very very very windy setting up on Friday, May 16.
Saturday was also windy but doable for me. Thanks to Frank, my husband,
we made it through the fair without being blown back to Wisconsin. Our hosts we
cordial, helpful and attentive to our needs. The audience was ready to shop
and I sold almost every "arty" handbag I made just for this fair!
Thank you. Thank YOU. THANK YOU!
I would like to return next year, if I get juried back in.
Me in my Marion Arts Festival Booth.
Mid April I was honored with the 2025 "Town Fool" Award.
A prestigious award given out by the Baraboo Arts Collective to
a local "art mover and shaker". I love my community and the Arts.
Thank you, BAC!
.jpg)
I helped Mariella - Helen's Daughters Handbags - with her very last
Bluff Country Studio Art Tour in Lanesboro, Minnesota.
She has done it 21 times and is she ready to focus
on the book about our family she is writing. she also wants to work more
with the local Fillmore County Historical Society. The history of our family
is her passion. She is our family Archivist. She is not retiring from handbag making.
Our mother, Helen, would have turned 100 on May 22, 2025.
She grew up during the Great Depression, finished 9th grade, and had to leave her home because her parents could no longer afford to keep her in their home. She became a mother's helper and later worked in the Libby's canning factory in Rochester, Minnesota. At age nineteen she met and married our dad and started her own family - David, Rod, Char, Ted, Mariella, and Jennifer. A gap of 21 years from the oldest to the youngest. She was a farmer's wife. Loved gardening - veggies and flowers. After we all left, she started doing a farmer's market and loved it. Summer and the sun were her best friends. She loved being outside. She loved being creative, baking, gardening, leading 4-H and drinking black coffee, and playing cards with our dad. There are many more things to tell you about our mom. We'll celebrate her 100th birthday today. We miss her every day. She lives on with every handbag we make. Her name is on each one. Our business honors our mother. Happy Birthday, Mom! Helen was really somethin'.
We've worked on many projects outside of the Studio.
I am finally returning to a work schedule and doing some gardening.
New handbags out of the studio.
.jpg)
