I’ve always had a passion for the arts, for color, texture, and design. After teaching literacy for 35 years, I began sewing quilts and collecting beautiful designer cottons – Japanese fabrics, Australian Aboriginal designs, fabrics with scripts in various languages (of course), Asian and African fabrics, batiks, designs featuring faces, animals, and leaves. The quilting helped me learn how to sew. Later, I took a workshop at the Portsmouth Fabric Company learning how to make a handbag. I’ve been sewing bags of all kinds ever since, for over a decade now.

I began working with wool when I convinced my husband that one of his Pendleton shirts, spattered with paint on the sleeves, needed to be repurposed. I’ve left his closet alone and searched local thrift shops for fine wools in men’s suit jackets and women’s jackets and skirts: beautiful tweeds, herringbone, camel hair, and cashmere.

We love to travel, and I’ve brought home yards of Donegal wools from Ireland and Harris Tweed from Scotland— just magnificent fabrics. What an amazing experience visiting the woolen mills where they weave the yarns. More recently, I’ve introduced leather and cork to my repertoire; they’ve added a wonderful new dimension to my work.

Each handbag, tote, or baglette is created with respect to the materials being used and the quantity available, so no two bags are alike. I try to keep my business name in mind when I am working on new patterns: Just Simple Bags. My intent is always to enhance the beauty and elegance of the textiles.