Superior pop-up offers artisan-created designs

Four crafty women are joining forces to offer handmade wares a couple of times a month in Superior’s East End business district.

Marsha Bergren, Lynn Sather, Debbie Lind and Debra Provost opened Burlap & Bows, a pop-up shop featuring artisan-created designs, for the first time Saturday, Nov. 13. The new store at 2104 E. Fifth St., plans to open again Nov. 27, and will open a couple Saturdays each month from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. Future dates include Dec. 4, Dec. 11, Jan. 15 and Jan. 29.

“We’re going to leave it up to the community to decide,” Sather said. “If it’s something they find a lot of value in, we’ll open up other days. But for right now, we’ll give people a couple of days a month.”

The gift shop offers handmade wares such as quilts, decorative pillows and pillowcases, handmade decorations, and knitwear.

In addition, guest artisans are invited in for each sale to give customers more variety, Sather said. Soaps and jewelry were featured Saturday.

For about 14 years, Bergren said, the store was the Country Schoolhouse Quilt Shop, where Bergren and Sather worked together in the quilt shop and in education as counselors.

“We always liked to do this kind of stuff as far as quilt-making, or making bags, or making little stuffed animals or things like this, mostly from patterns we ordered,” Bergren said. She said when she cut back to just one room and started just making quilt kits, everyone went their separate ways.

However, when space opened in the building again, Bergren said the building owner asked her if she wanted to reopen the quilt shop. While she didn’t want to do that, she made some calls to friends.

“Lynn was selling at these different craft kinds of shows and stuff like that,” Bergren said. Lind previously owned a quilt shop on the North Shore, and Provost, a friend of Sather’s, always had a dream of opening a gift shop that sold handmade things, Bergren said.

“That’s how we got started,” Bergren said. “We’ve been doing this stuff before for a long time.”

Sather said she has bins of items she’s created that will be cycled in and out of the new store.

From making quilt kits with patterns and fabric that let people sew their own kit, Bergren said she has about 200 sample quilts also available.

“We’re getting older, and it’s nice to have this one spot,” Bergren said.

“The other goal is to do primarily handmade stuff,” Sather said. “The other piece that we’re hoping to achieve is to reuse materials too.”

A fence that was once in Sather’s yard are now gnome wall hangings with a little creativity and a birch tree that was cut down now serves as creative candleholders and other decor.

“Rather than use it for firewood, we use it to decorate,” Sather said.

Bergren said the shop will change seasonally.

“If a person can’t come on a Saturday, if they give a call, we can make an appointment, preferably Wednesdays,” Bergren said.

To contact them, email burlap-and-bows@googlegroups.com or find Burlap and Bows Superior on Facebook .